Mischa Barton has confirmed long-standing rumours that she dated The O.C. co-star Ben McKenzie.
The adolescent drama, which aired from 2003 to 2007, was set in Orange County, California, and followed Ryan Atwood (played by Ben), a troubled boy from a broken family who was adopted by the rich Sandy and Kirsten Cohen.
Ryan and his adopted brother Seth (Adam Brody), a socially awkward, quick-witted teenager, grapple with life as outsiders in Newport Beach’s high-class environment, with Mischa as Marissa Cooper, the girl next door.
Mischa, 38, has claimed 18 years after leaving the programme that she and Ben, 45, were dating when the cameras first started rolling.
Despite reports at the time that they were more than friends, Mischa constantly denied this.
However, she has now confirmed what really happened during the latest episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast.
‘Yeah, that was my first… I had no idea what I was doing,’ she said.
‘I think that kind of set things off on the wrong foot too because… we threw ourselves all into it very fast… It definitely was tricky that it happened right out of the gate and I felt overwhelmed and not ready for any of that.’
The actress revealed that the producers were apprehensive about the connection because Ben was more than seven years older than her.
‘I remember they were like, “Mischa’s disappeared with Ben and like she’s only 17-and-a-half, 18”. The producers went to my parents. It was kind of a whole ordeal,’ she recalled.
‘That’s in the beginning of the show before we’re even halfway through a season.’
When host Alex Cooper inquired if she lost her virginity while filming the show, she said, ‘Yeah, that’s what I’m saying; I had no concept about relationships or sex, so it was like a complete learning curve for me.
She then said that she stopped the relationship because she did not feel mature enough.
‘I mean, yeah, (it was) one of those things where you’re so young and you’ve realised, “I’m not ready for this. I have no idea what I’m doing”,’ she said.
‘(It was) overwhelming and too close to home. It would be a very very tricky thing to keep going on set… I felt not mature enough, younger than them (her co-stars) in that sense, I had not dated before.’
Looking back, Mischa said that the breakup had already occurred when they filmed Marissa and Ryan’s first kiss on a Ferris wheel in the first season.
She said that they ‘hated each other at that time’, but the tension was beneficial to the programme on screen, but off it was a different story.
‘I think he was really angry with me, to begin with, and I felt the punishment of that. I felt that from the producers as well, that they were not happy about that,’ she explained.
‘We had to just suck it up and get on with it but there was a lot of jabs behind the scenes and off camera.’
The actresses worked together until her character died in the season three finale in 2006.
Mischa, who currently acts in the Australian serial opera Neighbours, said last year that as a teenager, she was encouraged to sleep with Leonardo DiCaprio in order to further her career.
Mischa told Harpers & Queen in 2005, at the height of The OC’s success, that she saw a then-30-year-old Leo during a photoshoot with her then-publicist Craig Schneider.
She claimed that Craig had told her: ‘For the sake of your career, go and sleep with that man.’
However, Mischa told the outlet she wasn’t interested in older men, asking: ‘Isn’t Leo like 30 or something?’
The O.C. is streaming on ITVX.
