Cole Sprouse, Lili Reinhart and More Riverdale Stars Speak Out Against Sexual Misconduct Claims
After sexual misconduct allegations were made against Riverdale stars, co-stars Cole Sprouse, Lili Reinhart, Madelaine Petsch and Camila Mendes have spoken out publicly denying the claims.
On Sunday, Sprouse addressed the claims publicly, tweeting, "Earlier today myself and three other cast mates were falsely accused of sexual offense by anonymous accounts on twitter. I take these accusations very seriously, and will be working with the right teams to get to the root of it. False accusations do tremendous damage to victims of actual assault. Furthermore, I would never seek to silence anybody. I encourage that people look into the accusations themselves, as the events detailed were factually untrue. This seems to be the latest claim in a series of incidents seeking to baselessly cancel my cast mates and me."
Reinhart also addressed the unspecified allegations by re-sharing Sprouse's tweet and adding, "I have always taken sexual assault allegations seriously. But it was proven that this account was created specifically to create false stories about me and my cast. I can't think of something more twisted than lying about sexual assault. It invalidates the men and women who are...brave enough to come forward with the truth. This kind of lie can ruin lives and careers—and I can call it a lie because the person who made the allegations already admitted that the stories were fabricated. We are looking into taking legal action. This kind of sick behavior only harms true survivors. This was incredibly triggering for me and scary because I've always supported survivors and believed them."
The actress noted in a final tweet, "I hope and pray that this does not discourage real survivors from speaking out about their experiences."
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Petsch also publicly criticized anyone who would make allegedly false accusations.
As she said in a video posted to her Instagram Story on Sunday, "Today it was brought to my attention that four of my castmates were falsely accused of sexual assault and I'm really unsure as to why anyone would ever think that that's an ok thing to do. It's so f--king [inaudible] and hard to go through and, as someone who's been sexually assaulted, I have no words. This is the reason why I was scared to come forward and talk about my experiences [inaudible] because I was afraid that someone would tell me that I was lying or that it didn't actually happen and for someone to go online and falsely accuse somebody of that only to come forward a couple of hours later and say that they were lying about four different people is such a serious thing to do, like honestly, how dare you? Because this is the reason why victims are afraid to come forward in the first place. This is the reason why people don't believe sexual assault victims and yet you're out here doing this online."
Petsch continued, "I am so taken aback right now. My heart is really hurting for my friends and castmates who went through this today and I hope that everyone knows how serious it is to accuse somebody of that and I hope they understand the severity of what that does to people who have actually been through that. It takes away the power from the victims who have gone through this, takes away the voices of people who want to come forward and talk about their experiences because it just validates the whole narrative that people lie about this stuff."
Co-star Vanessa Morgan retweeted Sprouse's tweets as well as one from Petsch, but did not comment further.
On Monday, Mendes released the following statement on her Instagram Stories: "It's incredibly destructive to falsely accuse people of sexual assault. Whatever point this person was trying to make about how quickly people believe what they read, it was not worth damaging the integrity of the Me Too movement. It's sickening and doesn't prove anything except that there are twisted people in this world who have no concern for the consequences of their harmful actions."
"Sending love to my castmates who had to deal with this nonsense," she continued. "Love you guys."
None of the stars who spoke publicly described the allegations further or clarified which cast members other than Sprouse and Reinhart had been accused.
Their statements came hours after an allegation against Sprouse was published on Twitter by an anonymous account using the name "Victoria" without a profile picture or tweets beyond the ones describing the claims against the actor.
"I want to tell about my sexual abuse by Cole sprouse," the tweets began. "It was at a party in 2013 when cole was at nyu. I was invited to one of his parties by a mutual friend, he came up during the party and started flirting with me and obviously I was flattered, we talked for quite a while."
The tweets continued, "We then started making out and he invited me to his room. I went but was a little tipsy having had like 3 drinks. Once we got to his room he became aggressive and shoved me against the bed, I pushed back against him but he didn't budge and I was drunk and he is bigger. He then...pushed me on the bed and put his hands under my shirt and started fondling my breasts I told him multiple times to stop, he wouldn't listen. By then I'm in tears and gagging from the alcohol smell on his breath. With me still saying no he proceeds to undo my pants."
"After he was," the tweets continued, "done he told me to leave. I left and went home sobbing and took a shower for a while. I never told anyone because who would believe me over a rich Disney star. #colesprouse #tellingmystory exposing."
According to a screenshot shared on Twitter, another anonymous account, which no longer exists, made an allegation against Reinhart and later admitted to lying about Morgan and their fellow co-star KJ Apa. Apa has not publicly addressed the situation.
