We Know Autumn Reeser Doesn't Stay In Touch With One Former Castmember
Way before she was a Hallmark star, Autumn Reeser was a golden-tan member of "The O.C." The hit teen show was as famous for its soundtrack as its twisty-turny plotlines and bountiful drama. The surf's-up reality show acted as a launching pad for several of its stars' careers, and many of the cast of "The O.C." remain tight until today. Still, there's one member that Reeser definitely doesn't stay in touch with.
Reeser first appeared in the show during the third season. Her character, Taylor Townsend, was initially intended to be temporary. Still, Reeser wowed producers, and they expanded her role to full-time for the show's fourth (and final) season. It wasn't just execs who loved Reeser; critics did too. Entertainment Weekly raved about "the rise of Autumn Reeser's Taylor as a fine, funny love interest for Ryan."
"Awww, I love Ryan and Taylor so much," Reeser told Too Fab. "I'm not sure they would have made it as a couple, though—they came from two very different worlds, and they had different visions of where they wanted to be in the future." Reeser's role as the O.C. Lothario's new squeeze knocked a few noses out of joint as Ryan Atwood, played by Benjamin McKenzie, had previously been hot and heavy with other O.C. stars, per ScreenRant. This could well have something to do with why Autumn Reeser doesn't stay in touch with one former cast member. The plot thickens...
No love lost...
Before there was Ryan and Taylor, there was Ryan and Marissa. Benjamin McKenzie's character, Ryan Atwood, began cozying up to Autumn Reeser's Taylor Townsend after his last love, Marissa Cooper, played by Mischa Barton, was bumped off by producers in the Season 3 finale, per MTV. So, perhaps it's not a coincidence that Reeser and Barton don't keep in touch.
Us Weekly caught up with Reeser in 2019, and she gave the ultimate snub by professing to have no knowledge of her former costar's recent high-profile signing to "The Hills" MTV revival. "She's on 'The Hills'? Isn't it a reality show?" Reeser sniffed. The actor claimed she didn't watch TV or pay attention to entertainment news. Still, she said that Barton's new role sounded "exciting." Not surprisingly, Reeser confessed to Us Weekly that she no longers speaks to Barton. However, she remains close to other cast members. "I see people every now and then at different things," Reeser said. "Ben and Rachel [Bilson] and a bunch of us met up at the "OC Musical" at the Montalban."
"It's hard to think about Marissa Cooper, the girl next door with sad-doe eyes and spectacular hair, without sobbing your eyes out," MTV wrote about Barton's shock departure. They shared that the producers' decision to kill off her character had proved hugely divisive among fans, to say the least. However, it didn't appear to bother her fellow cast members quite so much, though.
Drama in the O.C.
Rumors were rife from the start of "The O.C." that Mischa Barton wasn't the most popular cast member. On set, her character Marissa Cooper was BFF with Rachel Bilson's Summer Roberts. Still, when the cameras stopped rolling, it was handbags at dawn for the two actors. Hello! reported that no love was lost between Barton and Bilson, and the latter even invited the former onto her podcast, "Welcome to the OC, B******," so they could face off over accusations Barton made about Bilson.
Initially, Barton had stayed schtum about her exit from "The O.C." However, she offered tea-spiling allegations to E! News in 2021. Her character faced the most histrionics during her three seasons on the show. Cooper grappled with her parents' breakup, shot a dude, and was held hostage before eventually meeting her heartwrenching flame-filled demise in a grizzly car wreck—but Barton claimed it was even more dramatic off-set.
Barton alleged Bilson was a last-thought addition to the show — a claim she vehemently denied. "In one of her first comments, she said that I was added last minute after the first season, which is actually completely false and not what happened," Bilson said on her podcast (via Daly Times). Barton also told US Weekly that she'd been subjected to "general bullying from some of the men on set" and was forced to "build up my own walls" after being thrown to the publicity wolves by the show's creators.