Cole Sprouse is opening up about the heartache he experienced after ending his real-life relationship with “Riverdale” co-star Lili Reinhart.
The actor appeared on Wednesday’s episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast and spoke at length about what it’s been like to continue acting alongside Reinhart on “Riverdale” following their 2020 split.
“It was really hard for both of us, and that’s OK,” Sprouse said. “I think the work thing got difficult because it was hard to suspend all the way we felt about each other. It didn’t afford us the luxury of distance to really overcome that. I know we both did quite a bit of damage to each other.”
Reinhart and Sprouse met while shooting the first season of “Riverdale,” which premiered on The CW in January 2017. However, the pair didn’t make their romance official until May 2018, when they attended the Met Gala together.
For the next two years, the famously private actors kept their on-and-off relationship out of the glare of social media. By March 2020, however, Sprouse confirmed on Instagram that he and Reinhart had “permanently split,” adding: “I’ll always feel lucky and cherish that I had the chance to fall in love.”
In his “Call Her Daddy” chat this week, however, Sprouse suggested he would’ve ended the relationship sooner “if I had loved myself a little more.”
“I just felt like I had to take care of a lot of people around me, which was not good for me,” he explained. “I probably should have exercised a bit more selfishness in that situation.”
These days, Sprouse is happily in the throes of a new relationship with Ari Fournier, a French-Canadian model. Last year, Reinhart was romantically linked to fellow actor Spencer Neville, whose credits include “The Sex Lives of College Girls” and “Ozark.” Neither has publicly confirmed a relationship.
Describing himself as a “serial monogamist,” Sprouse said his romance with Fournier has “woke me up to what real compatibility and trust looks like.”
He went on to note, “This is the first relationship where I can say: ‘Damn, like, I have real trust here.’”
Catch the full “Call Her Daddy” chat with Cole Sprouse below.