Earlier today myself and three other cast mates were falsely accused of sexual offense by anonymous accounts on twitter. I take these accusations very seriously, and will be working with the right teams to get to the root of it. (1)
— Cole M. Sprouse (@colesprouse) June 22, 2020
It all stated when an account came forward with allegations against one of KJ Apa's band mates, who they later named as Alex Hooch. You can read through her whole thread, there's plenty of proof and seems pretty irrutable (again, big trigger warning):
ALEX HOOCH is the man who assaulted me. ALEX HOOCH is the one who hit me across the face while he tried to have sex with me. ALEX HOOCH is the man who ignored me crying and started talking about how he was gonna cum inside me. FUCK YOU. I’m no longer hiding who you are. https://t.co/O168CNkBMg
— x (@comingforward11) June 21, 2020
Then, earlier today, a different Twitter account popped up, making accusations about Cole Sprouse (Jughead Jones) during his time at NYU:
I want to tell about my sexual abuse by cole sprouse. It was at a party in 2013 when cole was at nyu. I was invited to one of his parties by a mutual friend, he came up during the party and started flirting with me and obviously I was flattered, we talked for quite a while,
— Victoria (@Victori66680029) June 21, 2020
While the Alex Hooch story was met with tons of support, this was, predictably, met with a much bigger divison. While most non-Sprouse/Jughead fans believed them, and a surprising amount of fans did too, there were of course some that absolutely refused to believe it.
Cut to an hour later, and two more accounts pop up, one (since deleted) accusing Vanessa Morgan (Toni Topaz) of assaulting them at a Halloween party years ago and another alledging that KJ Apa (Archie Andrews) assaulted them early last year. Only the KJ account is still up, so these are their tweets:
I've been afraid to share my story but I was sexually assaulted by KJ Apa in January last year. I was afraid to share for the same reason many of you will think it was consensual, I had some interest in him that night
— Alison (@Alison41740595) June 21, 2020
These accounts were also met with a surprising amount of support from disappointed fans. And then came one more, this time from another (since deleted) account claiming that Lili Reinhart (Betty Cooper) groped them while taking a picture.
But in a bit of a plot twist, not long after that, that same account tweeted that they were lying to prove how easy it is to fake these kinds of stories, and that KJ and Vanessa didn't do anything:
OH MY GOD????????????????? pic.twitter.com/NORdS9kMoJ
— nat (@chasingcrown) June 21, 2020
Based on that, a lot of fans took it to mean that this person was also behind the accounts accusing Vanessa and KJ, but I'll spare you the details of that detour (just know it involves another account, failed IP tracking, and other mess) and just say that long story short, the person behind the Lili account seems to have no affiliation with the KJ and Vanessa ones.
The next big development came when the Vanessa account - which deleted their tweets and deactivated around the same time as the Lili one, furthering that false speculation - reactivated and denied any affiliation with the Lili account, but did come forward and admit the truth about their story about Vanessa:
They just did pic.twitter.com/hY6YnSyeP5
— Ny (@nychoni) June 21, 2020
They said that apparently it wasnt even vanessa in the original story pic.twitter.com/U7zkm6vZi8
— 🌠 (@Downhillsnow) June 22, 2020
So as it turns out, they were relying a story someone else told them, that was both exaggerated and not even about Vanessa. For those keeping track:
Confirmed to be falsely accused: Lili Reinhart and Vanessa Morgan (both victims of sexual assault themselves)
Not confirmed yet: KJ Apa and Cole Sprouse.
Then a few hours later, it seems Cole was elected as the cast spokesperson, because he posted a series of tweets addressing the matter on his reactivated Twitter account:
Earlier today myself and three other cast mates were falsely accused of sexual offense by anonymous accounts on twitter. I take these accusations very seriously, and will be working with the right teams to get to the root of it. (1)
— Cole M. Sprouse (@colesprouse) June 22, 2020
This seems to be the latest claim in a series of incidents seeking to baselessly cancel my cast mates and me.
— Cole M. Sprouse (@colesprouse) June 22, 2020
Vanessa Morgan tweeted all three tweets, while Madelaine Petsch and Lili Reinhart quoted to add their her own commentary:
As someone who has been sexually assaulted, I am deeply deeply disturbed that anyone thinks that it is okay to falsely accuse someone of sexual assault. This is why real assault allegations can sometimes not be taken seriously, you should be ashamed. This is disgusting. https://t.co/EX8mUIuFGJ
— Madelaine Petsch (@madelainepetsch) June 22, 2020
Brave enough to come forward with the truth. This kind of lie can ruin lives and careers- and I can call it a lie because the person who made the allegations already admitted that the stories were fabricated.
— Lili Reinhart (@lilireinhart) June 22, 2020
I hope and pray that this does not discourage real survivors from speaking out about their experiences.
— Lili Reinhart (@lilireinhart) June 22, 2020
While it's entirely possible they've been in contact with Twitter higher ups and know more info than fans do, it's important to point out that while Cole and Lili seem to lump all the accusations in together and suggest that they not only all came from the same account/person, but that they've all been proven false, only Lili and Vanessa's have so far.
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Time will tell what happens from all of this, but one thing seems obvious: if KJ Apas knows about these accusations, he must know about the clearly legitimate one about his bandmate, so at the very least, he needs to kick him out of the band.