Mischa Barton Gets Candid About Her 'Complicated' Age-Gap Romance With Ben McKenzie on 'The O.C.'

Mischa Barton just admitted that she and Ben McKenzie did date on set of The O.C. after years of denying the romance due to age gap concerns. The actress, 38, candidly revealed what she called “the whole ordeal” while appearing on Alex Cooper’s popular podcast Call Her Daddy.

Barton is eight years younger than McKenzie and was 17 when she joined the show to play Marissa, a love interest of McKenzie’s character Ryan, who was 25 at the time. Barton admitted, after decades of speculation, that their romance wasn’t “just on screen.” She stated: “It was kind of complicated for me,” and explained that being cast on the show at a young age forced her to “grow up quickly.”

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Mischa Barton admits she and Ben McKenzie dated on ‘The O.C.’ despite their 8-year age gap.

“I went into that [show] a virgin, a kid,” Barton explained. “Acting with people older than me was a bit like, ‘Oh wow, they know what they’re doing. There’s going to be relationships on this show and you’re going to need to play that part.’ I didn’t feel really ready for that. I was always a really late bloomer in school, and I hadn’t really dated. I just had no idea what I was doing really. So, I felt like I needed to catch up.”

Barton explained that she and McKenzie, who is now 45, began dating “right out of the gate” and the relationship was her “first.” She added that her age-gap with McKenzie and the rest of the cast, which included stars like Rachel Bilson, Adam Brody and Melinda Clarke, “was a bit tricky for everyone.”

“I was experiencing all my firsts and I was so young and my mom would be on set and … I just needed a lot more attention in that sense,” Barton told Cooper. “It was a lot of my firsts, let’s put it like that. 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.”

Barton says she had “no idea” how to handle a relationship at that age. “I think that kind of set things off on the wrong foot too, because it was like people hook up on these shows and, whatever, and these things happen, but we threw ourselves all into it very fast,” the actress shared. “Then when you break up and things don’t work, and they see you dating other people. Notoriously, there was a lot of dating on that show and different people getting together.” Bilson and Brody famously dated for the majority of the show’s run, splitting shortly before their characters got married in the series finale.

Barton also recalled getting in trouble went showrunners would catch her running off with McKenzie. “I felt overwhelmed and not ready for any of that,” she recalled. “I remember they were like, ‘Mischa’s disappeared with Ben and she’s only 17 ½, 18,’ and the producers went to my parents and were like — it was kind of a whole ordeal.”

Barton previously opened up about feeling pressured to lose her virginity.

In a 2021 interview with Harper’s Bazaar U.K, Barton said she felt like a “fraud” because she was still a virgin when she began playing “a confident character who was fast and loose.”

“The kids in the show were quintessential rich, privileged American teenagers drinking, taking drugs, and of course having sex. I knew it was important to get this thing – my virginity – that was looming over me, the elephant in the room if you will, out of the way,” she revealed. “I started to really worry that I couldn’t play this character if I didn’t hurry up and mature a little. Did I ever feel pressured to have sex with someone? Well, after being pursued by older men in their thirties, I eventually did the deed. I feel a little guilty because I let it happen. I felt so much pressure to have sex, not just from him, but society in general.”

Before you go, click here to see celebrity couples with significant age differences.

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