Riverdale Stars Respond To Sexual Assault Allegations Made Against Cast Members

Early in the morning of Sunday, June 21, a new Twitter account was created where a user claimed to have been allegedly sexually assaulted by Riverdale star Cole Sprouse in 2013. Minutes after this, additional anonymous accounts on the social media site began to appear with similar accusations levied against the likes of Vanessa Morgan, Lili Reinhart, and KJ Apa, all co-stars of Sprouse’s on The CW series. In the time since, Sprouse, Reinhart, and some of their other fellow stars on the show have addressed the accusations, denying them outright and even insinuating that they might take legal action against the party that spread them.

“Earlier today myself and three other cast mates were falsely accused of sexual offense by anonymous accounts on twitter,” Sprouse wrote in a series of tweets. “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 added, “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. I hope and pray that this does not discourage real survivors from speaking out about their experiences.”

Their Riverdale co-star Madelaine Petsch, who was not named across the anonymous accounts, also chimed in on the accusations, saying: “As someone who has been sexually assaulted, I am deeply deeply disturbed that anyone thinks that it is okay to falsely accuse someone of sexual assault. This is why real assault allegations can sometimes not be taken seriously, you should be ashamed. This is disgusting.”

Most of the accounts that first posted accusations thrown at all four Riverdale stars have since been deleted or suspended, with one of them allegedly admitting to faking the entire thing as some kind of experiment in gullibility. Fans were suspicious of these accounts after their accusations began to pick up steam as they had all been created recently and featured similar naming conventions, a woman’s name followed by a series of numbers (a further sign of a new account). The coordination of accusing four of the leads from the popular series also drew suspicion.

The fifth season of Riverdale is currently scheduled to return to The CW starting in January of next year.