Cole Sprouse and Lili Reinhart Address ‘Riverdale’ Cast Sexual Misconduct Allegations
The cast of Riverdale responded to accusations made against them by an anonymous Twitter account.
Over the weekend, Cole Sprouse's name trended on Twitter after an account with the handle @Victori66680029 accused him of sexually assaulting her at a 2013 party.
Similar allegations were made against his co-stars Lili Reinhart, Vanessa Morgan and KJ Apa before the account tweeted, "Do you see how easy it is to lie and you guys will believe it? Vanessa Morgan and KJ Apa didn’t do jack s--t. You will believe anything."
In a statement posted to Twitter Sunday (June 21), the Disney Channel alum was the first to speak out, calling the allegations false and damaging to victims of sexual assault.
"Earlier today myself and three other castmates were falsely accused of sexual offense by anonymous accounts on twitter," Sprouse tweeted. "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," he continued. "I encourage that people look into the accusations themselves, as the events detailed were factually untrue."
Sprouse added, "This seems to be the latest claim in a series of incidents seeking to baselessly cancel my castmates and me."
Moments later, the actor's rumored ex-girlfriend and fellow castmember, Reinhart, quoted his tweet and 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."
The actress continued, "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."
Reinhart concluded her messaged with, "I hope and pray that this does not discourage real survivors from speaking out about their experiences."
The tweets were posted two days after a woman named Gabby accused actor Ansel Elgort of sexually assaulting her she was 17 and one day after an anonymous woman claimed Justin Bieber sexually assaulted her in 2014.