Rumours this week may claim that Riverdale co-stars Lili Reinhart and Cole Sprouse are broken up. But, cryptic captions on Instagram pics from their joint W cover story tell a different story. "BREAKING: A reliable source has confirmed that none of you know shit," Reinhart captioned a vampy photo of herself and Sprouse from the shoot.
Reinhart is right: We have no clue what's going on in their relationship. However, thanks to that W interview, we do know a little bit about how it started, and who wanted to keep things a secret in the first place.
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Reinhart and Sprouse are a notoriously private couple. While some speculated the two were an item in 2017, they didn't officially confirm it until many months later. And by "confirm," what we mean is they posted a particularly sweet birthday Instagram pic that all but sealed their relationship status. Their first red carpet official moment came at the Met Gala in May of 2018, and they've kept their PDA at public events to a minimum.
It seemed like Reinhart was spearheading the privacy of their relationship after she expressed annoyance on Tumblr about fans who constantly talked about her love life back in 2017. She also gave numerous interviews in which she shut down talk of her relationship with Sprouse.
"I think it's just that I'm so protective over [my relationship]. It's not something the world needs to know about, because if you give them anything, they are just going to want more," Reinhart said in an interview with Who What Wear in 2018.
While Reinhart was more vocal about keeping things quiet, she told W in her new profile that it was Sprouse who championed having a hush-hush romance. He, apparently, "pushed harder" for the boundaries between their private and public lives — and Reinhart wasn't on board at first.
"At first, I didn’t want things private," Reinhart told W of their relationship. "Now that I’m X amount of years in, I do appreciate the privacy we have, that he’s encouraged me to take. No one knows how long we’ve been together, and no one will until we’re ready to say it. No one knows how we fell in love, except for our close friends and us. It’s really special."
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Riverdale marks Reinhart's breakout role. It skyrocketed her, along with the rest of the relatively-unknown cast to fame. Sprouse, however, had an already established following from his time on Disney Channel's Suite Life of Zack & Cody. He has long seemed uncomfortable with eyes on him. He created the Instagram account @camera_duels to turn the tables on people who took pictures of him, something he addressed in the W piece.
"That was just a joke poking fun at celebrity culture in general and also a genuine therapy," Sprouse told the outlet. "[But] it actually did the opposite of what I wanted. It encouraged more people to want to take photos of me, creating its own Wild West duel and showdown."
One thing is clear: Reinhart and Sprouse crave some more privacy, whether they're still dating or not.
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