Cole Sprouse Says He and Lili Reinhart Did "Quite a Bit of Damage to Each Other"

Cole Sprouse and Lili Reinhart officially called it quits in 2020, and it sounds like the breakup was difficult for both actors. In a March 8 interview on the "Call Her Daddy" podcast, Sprouse detailed some of the more challenging aspects of his romance with his "Riverdale" costar.

"I think if I had loved myself a little more, I probably would have left [my relationship with Lili] a little earlier," Sprouse said. "I just felt like I had to take care of a lot of people around me, which was not good for me. I probably should have exercised a bit more selfishness in that situation."

He also shared that it was difficult to continue working on their show after their relationship ended. "The work thing got difficult because it was hard to suspend all the way we felt about each other and it didn't afford us the luxury of distance to really overcome that," Sprouse said. "I know we both did quite a bit of damage to each other." Still, he said, the pair have remained amicable. "We're good friends now, which is awesome," he added.

Reinhart has also been open about some of the difficulties she faced in the aftermath of their breakup. "I couldn't see the light. I was like, I feel like I'm dying," she told Refinery29 in August 2020. "It was f*cking rough, and there's no other way through it than just through it . . . I had to face my own pain head-on." She later criticized headlines that painted her quotes as direct reflections on her and Sprouse's relationship. "Quotes taken from my most recent interview are not about a 'breakup,'" she tweeted. "They are about the depression I've felt over these last few months. Tired of people taking my words out of context and piecing together their own story for clickbait."

During their time together, Sprouse and Reinhart kept the details of their relationship pretty private, but Sprouse announced their final separation in August 2020 with an Instagram post. "Lili and I initially separated in January of this year, deciding to more permanently split in March. What an incredible experience I had, I'll always feel lucky and cherish that I had the chance to fall in love," he wrote. "I wish her nothing but the utmost love and happiness moving forward. All I'll say about it, anything else you hear doesn't matter."

The pair had previously separated in the summer of 2019 before getting back together that fall. At the time of their July 2019 split, People reported that they had separated because they were just too different. "Their friends didn't really expect them to last in the long-run," a source told the publication. "At the end of the day, their personalities are very different and their lifestyles often clashed. Things have felt super heavy in the relationship for a while, and it got to be too much."

Throughout the course of their multiple breakups, Sprouse and Reinhart have had to continue playing Jughead and Betty on "Riverdale" — though that's about to end, as the show's seventh and final season premieres on March 29. Meanwhile, since ending things with each other, the two stars seem to have moved on. Sprouse is currently dating model Ari Fournier, whom he called his "best friend" in the "Call Her Daddy" episode. Reinhart has also been linked to "The Sex Lives of College Girls" actor Spencer Neville after the pair were spotted together at Coachella in 2022.