The article in question was an Entertainment Weekly interview with Outer Banks‘ Madelyn Cline and Riverdale‘s KJ Apa, in which both admitted there can be a lot of drama on the set of a teen drama. The cast spends a lot of time together and becomes like a family, they agreed, though a very particular kind of family. “You hook up with them, people hook up with each other,” Apa declared. “You have sex with them and stuff, and then things start happening. And then things get a little complicated, and then you’re on set, and now you’re fighting with them,” he shared. “You sort of just have sex with them, and then you just sort of see what happens. It’s just part of the deal.”
Petsch didn’t call out Apa by name, but still complained about “this article that came out that was like, ‘We all fucked each other all the time.’ And I was like, ‘Hey, no, I did fuck not any of you. I don’t claim that shit at all.'” As it happens, Apa wasn’t ever (publically) romantically linked to any of their co-stars on Riverdale either. (Cline did date her Outer Banks co-star Chase Stokes.) But their co-stars Lili Reinhart and Cole Sprouse dated for a while, and Camila Mendes and Charles Melton were also a couple. All of these showmances were broken up by Riverdale‘s final season, and though it may have caused “drama” in Apa’s view, the women were at least able to have a sense of humor about it. Reinhart and Mendes posted a TikTok together in 2022 with the caption, “Us trying to figure out how to date people we don’t work with.”
Petsch was able to avoid all this because “I don’t mix business and pleasure like that. I’ve never hooked up with a co-star,” she said. “Do you know why though? You know what’s really ironic about all this, is Cole sat me down during the pilot and was like, ‘If I can give you one piece of advice Mads…,'” she recalled. “He was like, ‘Hey, don’t hook up with any of your costars, okay?” And so I was like, ‘Okay, got it. I won’t.'”
