Lili Reinhart Speaks Out After Learning She's Being Impersonated in Interviews
Lili Reinhart's 2021 is off to a "bizarre" start.
There's no denying the Riverdale star has a huge fan base. Just take one look at her Instagram, and you'll notice she has more than 26 million followers. However, it appears one devotee has taken things to another level.
Case in point? On Friday, Jan 22, Seventeen Magazine issued an apology to the 24-year-old actress after they published an interview by someone pretending to be her.
"Today, we briefly published a story with information we were lead to believe was from Lili Reinhart. However, it was brought to our attention that the person who contacted us was, in fact, an impersonator and had no connection to the Riverdale star," the publication said in a statement on Twitter. "We want to sincerely apologize to Lili and her fans for this unfortunate situation."
"We reacted swiftly by removing the story from our site and regret the erroneous reporting," the statement continued, "We take full responsibility and will be internally reviewing our editorial and fact-checking processes to ensure something like this does not happen again."
Following the magazine's apology, the Hustlers star took to Instagram Stories to speak out about the situation.
"For some bizarre reason, someone impersonated me in an interview with Seventeen," she reacted to the news. "Nothing inappropriate was said, but those were not my words and I wanted to address it."
According to Buzzfeed, the impersonator shared details about the new Riverdale season and allegedly pretended to be the CW star's publicist.
TV Reporter Lucas Hill-Paul appeared to be scammed by the impersonator as well after it was revealed he would be retracting an article he wrote for The Daily Express "through the correct legal procedure."
"It's been brought to my attention that the interview I shared with Lili Reinhart was fake, and someone has been impersonating Lili and her publicist," he wrote on Twitter. "Obviously, I'm embarrassed and quite disturbed, and sincerely apologize to anyone who was misled by the article."
"Thanks for all the kind words," he continued. "It's clearly been a strange day for Riverdale fans and I can only hope my apology eventually reaches Lili herself. I'm very sorry someone thought to do this to her, but it's clear they're in a tiny minority of those who just want to watch a fun show."
At this time, it's unknown who has been impersonating the actress and her publicist. But one thing is certain, Riverdale stars' lives are interesting both on and off the screen.