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Lili Reinhart And Cole Sprouse's Breakup Is More Dramatic Than We Thought

After a few days to process the news of Lili Reinhart and Cole Sprouse’s breakup, I was feeling pretty at peace. I’m not a Riverdale fan, so I never felt any strong personal connection to their relationship. They’re both obviously gorgeous and I’m sure they’re great, but I wasn’t heartbroken over the news like some other people were. But now there’s more drama going on, so all of a sudden it’s all I care about. Apparently the stars of Teen Mom haven’t been stirring up enough controversy, because right now I feel like I’m one notch away from starting a Lili Reinhart and Cole Sprouse truther Twitter account.

I’ve got to say, it’s frustrating how not-messy these two are on social media. Here I am, checking which tweets they’ve liked or who they’ve replied to, and it’s all a big nothing in terms of clues, except for one tweet that Lili liked. At first, I passed it over because the tweet is in Portuguese, but the video is actually hilarious. The tweet translates to “When I’m about to do something stupid and change my mind,” and the video shows Lili refusing to take a microphone from Cole. It’s actually a funny meme, but we don’t know whether Lili liked it out of humor or to be shady. Who knows?

Over on Instagram, Lili posted a couple photos of her with the Riverdale cast from San Diego Comic-Con, so she and Cole have been in the same place, but that was never a mystery. Cole, on the other hand, hasn’t posted since June, when he reminded us all that he’s actually a super real photographer by posting half a dozen pics from a shoot he did for Elle in Iceland.

I’m not mad at this Iceland content, but it’s not really what I’m looking for from Cole right now. On paper, we still don’t officially know that they’re broken up, but the deluge of tabloid stories and anonymous stories in the past week would indicate that there’s at least something going on. Of course, you can’t trust every tabloid story, but when a lot of people are saying more or less the same thing, it’s usually at least a little bit legit.

For example, a source told E! News that Cole initiated the breakup after a big fight earlier this summer. The source says that “their relationship has always been up and down,” but that they’ll probably get back together. When this alleged fight and breakup happened, they were on their summer break from filming Riverdale, but filming has now started back up. They obviously spend a lot of time together on the set, and I don’t think they can really rewrite Betty and Jughead’s scenes together.

Of course, we don’t actually know who this source is, or how reliable their information is. But I don’t buy the idea that they’re definitely going to get back together just because they’re working together again. Coworkers date and break up all the time, and it’s a pain in the ass for everyone else in the workplace, and no Janice, I don’t want to hear about Steve’s erectile dysfunction in the break room.

Maybe they’ll get back together out of convenience (or love I guess, if you’re into that kind of thing), but there are also other factors at play here. Another source told People that Lili and Cole’s breakup wasn’t that surprising to people who know them, and that “Things have felt super heavy in the relationship for a while, and it got to be too much.” Again, take all this with a grain of salt, but I can imagine that it would be stressful to have the entire world paying attention to your relationship. Lili and Cole have always kept the particulars of their relationship pretty low-key, but the pressure still must get to them.

According to the People source, “They’re both very professional though and trying to be as amicable and friendly as possible.” This makes sense, because Lili Reinhart and Cole Sprouse aren’t in the position to ruin their reputations by causing scenes on the Riverdale set.

So, can we synthesize all of this info into one theory about what’s going on with Lili Reinhart and Cole Sprouse’s relationship? My best guess is that they’re currently not together, like in a relationship sense, but they can obviously still stand to be in the same room. As the press ramps up for season four of Riverdale in the fall, we’ll probably get a better sense of whether they’re actually a couple, but it probably doesn’t matter much at this point. They’re so young, and it would be weird if they didn’t have a healthy dose of relationship problems. They’re both pretty, so I’m sure they’ll work it out.

UPDATE: It looks like my newfound obsession with finding out the truth about Lili and Cole isn’t going anywhere. No sooner had I finished writing the above article, than Lili and Cole broke their Instagram silence with a post that really throws a wrench in this whole situation.

Okay so, yeah. This complicates things. The caption is an obvious wink to all of these sources that have been speaking about Lili and Cole’s breakup, which might not have actually happened? I’m so confused by all of this, but Cole and Lili are definitely not into all of the rumors that have been going around. Personally, I don’t necessarily read this as proof that they aren’t broken up, but they obviously don’t really want us to know exactly what’s going on.

Also, it’s important to note that this cover for W Magazine was definitely shot weeks, if not months, ago, so it’s not like they were doing this photoshoot specifically to prove everyone wrong. They still have a show to promote together, so press appearances come with the territory. For now, we’re all just going to have to keep guessing what’s going on with these two.

Images: colesprouse, lilireinhart / Instagram

Dylan Hafer
Dylan Hafer
Dylan Hafer has watched over 1000 episodes of Real Housewives because he has his priorities in order. Follow him on Instagram @dylanhafer and Twitter @thedylanhafer for all the memes you could ever want.