Citations de Chad

Chad Michael Murray, star of the new WB series One Tree Hill, plays a high school student living with his single mom. But in real life, Chad and his four siblings were raised by their father. “My mother left when I was seven,” he says, adding that he didn’t see her again till he was 18 and had already left Buffalo, New York for Los Angeles. “I was home for a visit, and I answered the door and it was really uncomfortable,” he remembers. Not surprisingly, having a mother on the show was a bit strange for him. “I was nervous about trying to create a relationship with a mother because I’d never had one. So I decided to play a little bit off my father. My father raised five kids and was there for me every day. I idolized my father and looked up to him.” Today, Chad says his dad is very proud and supportive of him. “He’s always excited for me.”

One Tree Hill star Chad Michael Murray may be “in demand” now, but he wasn’t always so popular. Chad told us that he was bullied as a child, “ever since I was in kindergarten. I had my two front teeth knocked out by a sixth grader in first grade. He picked me up and jacked me in the mouth. My house got egged, and all that stuff that happens to you when you’re growing up with people who don’t understand what’s going on.” Things didn’t get much better when Chad got to high school. “I hated high school, to be honest,” he says. “I enjoyed the educational part of it; my teachers allowed me to be creative. But I didn’t have any friends, because I didn’t fit in.” But he didn’t let that stop him. “I thought past high school to what I wanted to do.” One bonus: “I dated a girl from a different school,” he says, “so she didn’t know that I was a nerd!”