Chad Michael Murray shares debilitating agoraphobia experience: ‘The world felt like it was closing in’

In the early 2000’s Chad Michael Murray seemingly had it all – a hit TV show in “One Tree Hill,” a wife in co-star Sophia Bush and a face that could make just about anyone swoon.

But the actor, who divorced Bush in 2006 after five months of marriage, said he was “far more fragile than I ever put on.” 

“Everyone starts telling you ‘Yes,’” he shared in an interview with The Cut. “But I was walking around with a really pained heart.” 

CHAD MICHAEL MURRAY EXPLAINS KEEPING HIS FAITH STRONG IN HOLLYWOOD: ‘I STICK TO THE THINGS I BELIEVE IN’

Murray was dealing with agoraphobia, an anxiety disorder where people are afraid to leave their deemed safe space. Individuals who struggle with agoraphobia are sometimes confined to their surroundings for months or years. He still struggles with it.

“I was around 23, and I had an event in Miami, but I couldn’t leave my hotel room,” Murray revealed. “The world felt like it was closing in; I was having anxiety attacks.”

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Chad Michael Murray still lives with agoraphobia.  (Kevin Mazur/WireImage/Getty Images)

When he turned 25, Murray said he shifted his priorities. “I woke up and felt unsettled. I didn’t like the direction that I was going in my life,” he recalled. “I went to church, and I got a tattoo of a cross on my left wrist, and I was like, I’m going to move myself in faith.” 

Chad Michael Murray currently stars in “Mother of the Bride” on Netflix. (Netflix/Entertainment Pictures/ZUMAPRESS.com)

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Chad Michael Murray says things changed for him on his 25th birthday after feeling unsettled with how he was going about life. (Steve Granitz/FilmMagic/Getty Images)

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The “Gilmore Girls” actor, now 42, spoke about his faith with Fox News Digital in 2022, sharing that he has rejected projects that haven’t aligned with his beliefs.

“I stick to the things I believe in,” Murray explained. “Let’s just say a piece of material were to come across my desk, which has happened plenty of times over the last 22 years, that I don’t necessarily feel is what I believe or what I’m selling — then that’s not for me.”

Chad Michael Murray says he’s turned down several opportunities in Hollywood, because the stories were not ones he was looking to tell. (Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images)

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“I don’t want to step in something that I don’t believe in any way, because it’s going to destroy it for everybody else involved,” he said. “If you don’t fully love and embrace the character that you are inhabiting, it will show on screen. I always want to give the people that I’m working with and the people who are going to watch the movie, the most of me.”