Mischa Barton reveals she and Ben McKenzie dated while they were filming The O.C.

Mischa Barton is opening up about her real-life romance she had with her The O.C. costar, Ben McKenzie.

The actress, who was only 17 when started playing Marissa Cooper on the beloved Fox teen drama, revealed on the Call Your Daddy podcast that the romance fans were seeing unfold between her character and McKenzie’s Ryan Atwood “wasn’t just onscreen." But, she admitted, their relationship was "kind of complicated."

“I went into that a virgin, a kid, really, feeling like I needed to grow up quickly,” Barton confessed. “Acting with people older than me was a bit like, ‘Oh wow. They know what they’re doing.’ And there’s gonna be relationships on this show and you’re gonna need to play that part, and I didn’t feel really ready for that, ‘cause I was always a really late bloomer in school and I hadn’t really dated.”

As a result, Barton said that she felt like she had “no idea what I was doing, really” and “like I needed to catch up, I think, a lot of the time.”

Earlier in the episode, the actress admitted that the sizable age gap between her and her costars — including McKenzie, who was 25 at the time — made filming the series “a bit tricky for everyone" attached to the project. "It was a lot of my firsts, let’s put it like that,” she explained. “And that kind of really separated me, a little, from them, in the sense that I wasn’t out there living on my own in L.A. yet.”

It also impacted her relationship with McKenzie. Barton added that it "kind of set things off on the wrong foot" between them because the pair began dating very early on in the series.

"It definitely was tricky that it happened like right out of the gate and that I felt overwhelmed and not ready for any of that," she said. “I remember they were like, ‘Mischa’s disappeared with Ben and she’s only 17 and a half, 18,’ and the producers went to my parents and were like... it was kind of a whole ordeal.”

“That’s in the very beginning of the show before we’re even like, halfway through a season, so there was a lot going on there," she continued. "That show, it just... so much happened in three seasons, it really feels like it was over the course of seven years or something, but it wasn’t. It was all crammed into this tiny little space.”

In the end, Barton said she was the one who ended their relationship because it was “overwhelming and too close to home.” However, she acknowledged that the chemistry between them definitely translated on screen — especially when it came to Ryan and Marissa's first kiss while stuck on a Ferris wheel during the first season.

“People did fall in love with [the characters] because there was genuine friendship and love there on some level,” she said. “That sexual tension was there and it reads, like, even when you’re looking at the scenes on the Ferris wheel and stuff… I think we kinda hated each other at that point, but there was still this intense kind of tension there, so it really worked for the show.”

In the years since The O.C. aired, Barton has been open about her experience shooting the series, telling E! News in 2021 that it was not "the most ideal environment for a young, sensitive girl who's also been thrust into stardom to have to put up with." That same year, she similarly recalled in a personal essay for Harpers Bazaar UK that she felt pressured by society to have sex before she was ready due to her character's actions on the show.

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.

Related content:

• Why The O.C. didn't give Marissa a funeral
• Ben McKenzie, Rachel Bilson, and more celebrate The O.C.'s 20th anniversary
• Ben McKenzie is rewatching The O.C. with his 7-year-old daughter