Mischa Barton has said her legal battle with ex-boyfriend Jon Zacharias, over his attempts to sell nude videos of her online, was “one of the most gruelling experiences” of her life.
The actor, 37 – who rose to fame for her role as Marissa Cooper in California-set teen dramaThe OC – talked about the difficult period in a new interview.
In court papers in 2017, Barton had alleged that Zacharias recorded the former couple while they were having sex, as well as took photos of her while she was naked, without her knowledge. The suit added that Zacharias was trying to sell the tapes for $500,000.
It was ruled that Zacharias must stay 100 yards (91 metres) away from her at all times and hand in all explicit images of the star.
Speaking in a new interview with The Sunday Times, Barton said the legal battle was “one of the worst and most gruelling experiences of my life”.
She added: “It’s shocking to realise that there is that type of darkness in the world. And you wonder what you’ve done to attract it.”
Elsewhere in the interview, she talked about being chased by paparazzi in the Noughties, saying it all felt “very Hunger Games”.
She said: “You can go to therapy every day for the rest of your life, but there’s just a certain amount of trauma [from] all that I went through, particularly in my early twenties, that just doesn’t go away overnight.”
Barton suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, and the sound of cameras can trigger a panic attack.
The actor is currently starring in the Amazon Prime reboot of Neighbours, as hotel owner Reece Sinclair.
Mischa Barton— (PA Archive)
In the years since The OC, which ran from 2003 to 2007, she has also appeared on Dancing with the Stars and the reality TV show The Hills: New Beginnings.
Barton left The OC in 2006, a year before it ended. Barton’s departure devastated fans at the time, with Marissa’s on-and-off boyfriend Ryan Atwood (Ben McKenzie) carrying her lifeless body away from a car crash, to the soundtrack of “Hallelujah” by Jeff Buckley.
