Cole Sprouse says he and ex Lili Reinhart did “damage to each other”

Cole Sprouse has stopped by the Call Her Daddy podcast to discuss, ehm, pretty much everything about his life — from being born in Italy to losing his virginity and his many relationships in life, including his split from Riverdale co-star Lili Reinhart. (Let’s focus on this part only.)

ICYMI: Cole and Lili dated on and off for a few years before calling it quits in 2020. After making their public debut as a couple at the 2018 Met Gala, they became mainstays on each other’s social media profiles. Still, both actors were resolutely tight-lipped about their relationship. 

“I keep my relationship private because it’s just between two people, and that’s the way it should be,” Lili told Teen Vogue back then. “People feel like they’re owed that, and you’re absolutely not owed anything by me.” In 2020, post-breakup, she wrote on Twitter that she “would never speak so candidly about something as personal as a breakup” because it’s “incredibly private.”

However, it seems like that’s not quite the case for Cole. Speaking to Call Her Daddy podcast host Alex Cooper, Cole admitted that navigating his breakup with Lili while still working together on Riverdale was “really hard” for them, and said they “both did quite a bit of damage to each other.”

Cole said working together didn’t “afford [them] the luxury of distance” to overcome obstacles and heal. “We really leaned on each other while also going through the elected trauma of this incredible overnight success, a ton of criticism, a ton of expectations,” Cole added. “I think we did the best we could, and I’m very grateful that I was able to go through it with someone that was going through the exact same set of circumstances as me. But also, in very many ways, all the clichés about dating someone you work with are very true.”

Cole added that though he’s not currently good friends with Lili, he feels the relationship lasted longer because they were working together, and it put pressure on the two of them. Cole did, however, refuse to share why his relationship with Lili ended. (ICYMI: Cole is now dating French-Canadian model Ari Fournier.)