Kevin McHale needs to get something off his chest — and it involves nearly mortally wounding Ed Sheeran at one of Sophia Bush’s house parties.
“I have a confession,” the Glee alum, 36, told Bush, 42, on a Thursday, August 22, episode of her podcast “Work in Progress.” “You were having one of your parties, and I brought my brother, which I had never done.”
Bush confirmed the get-together was one of her “living room parties,” which started small but grew larger and larger over the years.
“Ed Sheeran was at your house,” McHale continued. “And I was like, ‘That’s new.’ I remember walking in and being like, ‘He’s very famous.’ And we were on the balcony upstairs and what I thought happened was my brother put his beer on the banister and then turned and knocked it down and it fell where Ed Sheeran was standing not 20 seconds before.”
McHale explained that he blamed his brother for the almost-tragic incident for years — until recently, when he realized that he was actually at fault.
“I blamed my brother,” he told Bush. “I was like, ‘I bring my brother one time to your house and he almost kills the biggest artist in the world.’ But I realized, it was me. He put the beer stupidly on the banister, so there’s that. But then I turned and knocked it over and it went flipping down to the bottom and splattered.”
He continued: “I just remember looking over, because I had looked down right before and Ed Sheeran was right there. And then you came running out and you looked up and I was like, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.’ In the middle of your party I almost killed Ed Sheeran.”
After Bush jokingly asked McHale if he wanted to publicly apologize to the “Perfect” singer, he gladly took the opportunity.
“I’m sorry Ed Sheeran for almost killing you,” he said. “We never even met. I just almost severely injured him … I don’t even think he realized how close he was to a beer bottle smashing on his head from a second story.”
McHale and Bush are longtime friends, having bonded over their shared love of activism and their shared experience of rising to fame on a hit TV show in the early aughts.
While Bush wrapped up the ninth and final season of One Tree Hill in 2012, McHale’s Glee ran from 2009 to 2015. The pair met while they were both in the midst of filming, and they were mutual admirers of each others’ series.
“I felt like when I met you, your show was just so gigantic,” McHale told Bush on the podcast. “You were all wildly famous, which was a different thing than our show.”
Bush countered that she “didn’t feel like that,” especially since the One Tree Hill cast was siloed in Wilmington, North Carolina, where they filmed the show.
“I was the exact demographic who grew up watching you guys,” McHale continued. “You were on every magazine cover. Just everywhere.”
On Bush’s end, while her One Tree Hill filming days kept her from watching much TV, her friend insisted they watch Glee every Sunday and she quickly fell in love with the series.
“We started binging the show, and so when you and I became friends, I was just like, ‘I’m so proud of you, but also, like, are you good? Are you so tired? Are you okay?” she said. “You’re essentially doing a full Broadway production every single week.”
