Although I couldn’t bring myself to watch more than a single season of The CW’s “Riverdale,” like any mildly invested fan, I remained somewhat interested in the personal lives of the cast members.
I was delighted when Cole Sprouse and Lili Reinhart made their off-screen relationship official in 2018 on the Met Gala red carpet. Two years later when they called it quits, I was okay with them going their separate ways and they’ve continued working well together since, with the show’s seventh and final season premiering at the end of this month.
It’s been nearly three years since the breakup, so there wasn’t much conversation circulating about the former couple until this week when Sprouse made comments on Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” podcast.
The actor has since been criticized by fans deeming that he humiliated his ex and was out of line for speaking on a relationship that’s been over for so long.
On the podcast, Sprouse claimed that while they were together, he and Reinhart “both did a lot of damage to each other.” He described the difficulty of maintaining a personal and professional relationship with a co-star, further explaining how the relationship ended and what he learned from it.
Despite not placing any direct blame on Reinhart or personally attacking her, fans have taken issue with the fact that he mentions her at all and reveals private details about their time together on what one user called “the most annoying podcast ever.”
I don’t follow Sprouse’s career or interviews closely enough to comment on his overall personality, but I don’t think he deserves the degree of hate that he’s receiving for the interview. I agree that it can be distasteful to address the end of a public relationship, especially when you’re still working with that person, but his commentary wasn’t disrespectful or accusatory.
It’s a bit of a reach to call him “obsessed” and “trying to get ahead of everything” when he’s barely spoken publicly about the breakup and has been in another relationship for nearly two years.
Sprouse is a star known to keep his personal life private and should be given the benefit of the doubt, especially for speaking on a platform designed to give interested fans insight into things that have never been publicly addressed.
