Every few months fans re-freak out over the fact that Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) and Seth Cohen (Adam Brody) ended up married — but let Us remind you that Chris Keller (Tyler Hilton) and Grace Bowman (Megan Park) are another teen drama match made in heaven.
“People are so weirded out because she was like this Christian, goody two-shoes, ‘I’m a virgin’ on Secret Life. And I was such a raunch dog on One Tree Hill,” Hilton, 41, told Us Weekly during an exclusive interview. “They’re like, ‘What? How did these characters end up together?’”
“I think people’s minds are blown — but a lot of people don’t know, like. until they see us together,” Hilton continued. “I guess we’ve been more private than I’ve realized.”
Hilton and Park, 38, wed in 2015 after meeting on the set of 2007’s Charlie Barlett. At the time, Hilton had made several guest appearances on The WB-turned-CW’s One Tree Hill as bad boy Chris Keller (originally meant to pose a threat for popular couple Nathan and Haley) and Park was about to start a five-season run on ABC Family’s Secret Life of the American Teenager (the show by 7th Heaven creator Brenda Hampton where Shailene Woodley got her start).
Now, Hilton and Park share two kids, a daughter, Winnie, born in 2019, and a son, Benny, born in 2024. While Hilton is on tour and is gearing up to release his first children’s book, Park has shifted her focus to directing, receiving critical acclaim for 2024’s My Old Ass, starring Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza.
Tyler Hilton and Megan Park at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival J. Vespa/WireImage
“I did the score for it,” Hilton told Us of his wife’s film. “I’ve always wanted to do that. I was gonna go to college for film scoring. This is the first movie I did the full score, and it was so, so fun. She’s so easy to work with and so smart. All I had to do was show up and do what she said. It worked out.”
Hilton continued to gush about Park. “She’s unbelievable as a director and writer. It’s crazy,” he said. “The movie kills me. I’ve seen it a thousand times. I’ve read every version of the script, and it still makes me cry. It’s so good.”
While their kids are too young to see their film and TV projects, 5-year-old Winnie was the inspiration for Hilton’s latest venture, a children’s book titled Daddy: Live in Concert.
“During the pandemic, she was a baby and I just played her a lot of music, and I would do these little concerts for her. And then during the second lockdown, I was hearing all these stories from my fans who had kids who were so bummed and cooped up inside. So I started streaming these concerts live on my Instagram. My wife and I started getting really into them. We were putting stuffed animals all around me — the stuffed animals were, like, characters — we were all going a little crazy, but I was having so much fun with it. My daughter was loving it.”
Interested in writing a kid’s book “forever,” Hilton ran with the idea.
“I was like, ‘Wait, this would be actually such a cute idea,” he said. “It didn’t matter that I was a professional musician. Like, what if there was a book just about a dad whose daughter thought, ‘Oh my God, my dad’s the biggest rock star in the world’? And my daughter has never seen me tour or anything like that until this last year. I could have just been any random guy to her. And she was still like, ‘Oh my God.’ I thought I was the greatest thing ever. I just thought it’d be so fun if there was this book from the little kid’s perspective — it’s a the version of like, ‘My dad could beat up your dad,’ but it’s like, ‘My dad is the biggest rock star in the whole world and he’s playing a concert at my house tonight.’”
The book, illustrated by Eugenia Nobati, is not just his latest literary project. Hilton has had a charity called T.H. Books For Kids since 2004, which has donated books to kids after natural disasters over the years.
“I think about it so much — how important reading is for kids,” he said. “It’s a forced way to get them to cuddle with you — it puts you right next to each other. They’re hearing your voice. They’re using their imagination. It’s such a special time reading books with kids. … They really get into it.”
Daddy: Live in Concert will be available on April 8.
