Cole Sprouse Stands up for Female Disney Channel Stars Who Were ‘Sexualized’

Cole Sprouse came to the defense of his former female Disney Channel co-stars in a new interview with The New York Times this week. The Moonshot star believes every former child star had a different experience with fame, and it is unfair to compare him with any of his colleagues, including his twin brother Dylan Sprouse. The Sprouse twins starred in Disney’s hit The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, alongside Brenda Song and Ashley Tisdale.

Sprouse, 29, and Dylan are often told they “made it out” of child stardom unscathed because they both found success as adults. Sprouse stars on Riverdale and has a side career as a photographer. Dylan has continued to star in independent movies, including After We Collided (2020). However, Sprouse doesn’t think it’s right to say they didn’t experience any trauma. Sprouse then pointed out how different his experiences were compared to his female co-stars.

“The young women on the channel we were on [Disney Channel] were so heavily sexualized from such an earlier age than my brother and I that there’s absolutely no way that we could compare our experiences,” Sprouse told the Times. “And every single person going through that trauma has a unique experience. When we talk about child stars going nuts, what we’re not actually talking about is how fame is a trauma.”

Sprouse is “violently defense” when he hears people mock some of the young women who starred on the Disney Channel “because I don’t feel like it adequately comprehends the humanity of that experience and what it takes to recover,” the actor explained. “And, to be quite honest, as I have now gone through a second big round of this fame game as an adult, I’ve noticed the same psychological effects that fame yields upon a group of young adults as I did when I was a child. I just think people have an easier time hiding it when they’re older.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Sprouse said there was no way he would star in a Suite Life revival. He does not have anything against those who do sign up for reboots and revivals, but he doesn’t want to do that himself. He compared reviving Suite Life to “reheating a really good, fresh meal in the microwave.”

Sprouse stars as Jughead Jones on Riverdale, which passed 100 episodes during Season 6. The show has already been renewed for a seventh season. New episodes air Sundays at 8 p.m. ET and are later available on The CW app. Past seasons are available on Netflix.