Cole Sprouse, Lili Reinhart Deny Twitter Sexual Assault Allegations Against ‘Riverdale’ Cast

Cole Sprouse and Lili Reinhart are speaking out after four Riverdale cast members, including the two stars, were accused of sexual assault and harassment. Over the weekend, numerous social media users raised allegations against Sprouse, Reinhart, Vanessa Morgan, and KJ Apa, accusations that both Sprouse and Reinhart denied as “false” on Sunday.

Taking to Twitter, Sprouse, who portrays Jughead on The CW series, said that he and three of his castmates were “falsely accused of sexual offense by anonymous accounts on twitter.” The allegations began after an account with the handle @Victori66680029 posted four tweets in which they accused Sprouse of sexual assault at a 2013 party. Not long after, allegations were also brought against Reinhart, Morgan, and Apa from anonymous accounts. Sprouse said that he takes “these accusations very seriously, and will be working with the right teams to get to the root of it.” Again calling the accusations “false,” the actor wrote that such allegations “do tremendous damage to victims of actual assault.” Sprouse said that he “would never seek to silence anybody” and encouraged that “people look into the accusations themselves, as the events detailed were factually untrue.” He added that “this seems to be the latest claim in a series of incidents seeking to baselessly cancel my cast mates and me.”

Sprouse’s statement was retweeted by Morgan and also quoted by Reinhart, who added that she has “always taken sexual assault allegations seriously” and explained that “it was proven that this account was created specifically to create false stories about me and my cast.” She said that she “can’t think of something more twisted than lying about sexual assault.” She wrote that “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.”

After a number of allegations were made against the stars, several people cast doubt on their legitimacy. Some took issue with the fact that some of the allegations seemed to come from newly created accounts that all had a similar username, beginning with a woman’s name and followed by numbers, though some stated that the alleged victims did not want to reveal their true identities. According to BuzzFeed News, after a while, the account that had made accusations against Reinhart had returned to Twitter with another tweet, stating, “Do you see how easy it is to lie and you guys will believe it? Vanessa Morgan and Kj Apa didn’t do jack shit. You will believe anything.”

In her address, Reinhart said that she is “looking into taking legal action” and said that “this kind of sick behavior only harms true survivors.” She said that the accusations had been “incredibly triggering” and “scary” for her as she has “always supported survivors and believed them.” She ended her remarks by expressing her hope that “this does not discourage real survivors from speaking out about their experiences.”