Rachel Bilson: 'O.C.' Writers Trolled Adam and Me With Wedding After Split

Rachel Bilson revealed she and Adam Brody split in real life before they filmed Summer and Seth’s wedding on ‘The O.C.’ — read more

Shortly before Seth Cohen and Summer Roberts walked down the aisle onscreen during the series finale of The O.C., Adam Brody and Rachel Bilson called it quits offscreen.

“We broke up at the very end so there wasn’t much [for us to film] after the breakup. We did get married after we broke up … That’s always fun,” the 39-year-old actress recalled to Dax Shepard on his “Armchair Expert” podcast on Monday, March 29. “They totally did that on purpose. That was the only scene left to shoot, was the wedding. They’re like, ‘You broke up? Let’s give you a wedding.’”

Bilson and Brody, 41, started dating shortly after they met on the set of the Fox drama in 2003. After the 46-year-old Parenthood actor told the Hart of Dixie alum he “loves” Brody and wishes they were married so they could double date with him and Kristen Bell, Bilson praised her ex’s wife, Leighton Meester.

“We still got along really well. I had so much, and still do, love and respect for Adam,” she told Shepard, who noted he didn’t mean to disrespect the Gossip Girl alum, 34. “We went through so much together, being so young and everything with the show. And I’m so happy for him with his family and his beautiful wife and kids and everything.”

Rachel Bilson on Marrying Adam Brody on The O.C. After Split — Adam Brody and Rachel Bilson on The O.C. FOX

Brody and Meester wed in 2014 and share daughter Arlo, 5, and a 7-month-old son whose name they haven’t publicly shared. Bilson, for her part, shares daughter Briar, 6, with ex Hayden Christensen.

During her appearance on “Armchair Expert,” Bilson noted that her relationship with Brody helped her stay grounded while filming the popular drama, which also starred Mischa Barton and Ben McKenzie, at a young age.

“Mischa was 16. I can’t even imagine,” she said. “I think I kind of got a lot out of my system early, growing up in L.A. I wasn’t at the clubs, falling out of the cars panty-less. It was a little different for me. I was in a relationship during the show, which I think helped keep me at home, playing board games and watching really great TV like Jeopardy! We did go out, but it was just a different thing. There was stability and I did grow up kind of fast, did all the stuff a little early.”

Not long after his three-year relationship with Bilson, Brody met Meester, who was filming The O.C. creator Josh Schwartz’s next show, Gossip Girl.

“Josh Schwartz produced both shows and literally the first time we met, that whole cast was eating at Canter’s [Deli in Los Angeles] and I lived at Canter’s for like my entire 20s. And I was leaving, and he introduced all of us,” Brody recalled on Anna Faris’ “Unqualified” podcast on Monday.

The twosome crossed paths again while filming 2011’s The Oranges. “I was seeing someone at the time [when we did the movie]. So, we met kind of through mutual work friends off and on. And then we didn’t get together about a year after that movie when I was single,” he said. “She’s a heavenly creature. But I had no idea whether she was a good person or not. And, in fact, kind of assumed she probably wasn’t for like the first handful of years that I didn’t know her, just because, I don’t know, Gossip Girl. … Come to find out she’s literally like Joan of Arc. She is, like, the strongest, best person I know. She is my moral compass and North Star, and I just can’t say enough good things about her character.”