Lili Reinhart is ready and willing to really talk about the depth of pain and healing she went through following her breakup from her Riverdale co-star Cole Sprouse. While Reinhart never
names Sprouse explicitly, she talked to Refinery29 about how she spent the last few months healing after leaving a relationship. (In May 2020, People reported that Sprouse and Reinhart, who had been on and off throughout their nearly three-year relationship, broke up.) She talked about the withdrawal she felt, the darkest days during it, and how she made herself "face my own pain head-on" instead of using substances, other people, or food to escape it.
Reinhart said initially, the breakup was like a “black tunnel [that] was never going to end. I couldn't see the light. I was like, I feel like I'm dying. It was f*cking rough, and there's no other way through it than just through it. I've seen a lot of people when it comes to heartache and grief and breakups, and they try to get that void filled with sex, with coke, with food, with drinking, [but] the void is still there. I took the road less traveled and just dealt with my shit. I had to face my own pain head-on.”
"The last couple of months have probably [been] the most emotional few months of my entire life," she added. "And my therapist [told] me, ‘Your body's going through withdrawal from love. You're used to having this exchange of happy chemicals between you and the person that you're with.’ In moments of my life, I have dropped every ounce of pride that I had just to be like, Love me. Please take the pain away for a day, a second, an hour, just so I can feel that fix again."
Reinhart is still continuing that healing process. At the end of September, her first poetry book, Swimming Lessons, will come out. (She has already finished a second book of poetry, she told Refinery29). But she cautions fans not to take her poetry as fact or her spilling details about her relationship with Sprouse. “I felt the need to write that because I was scared—and I am scared—that people are going to try and create their own idea of what my love life looked or looks like,” she said. “I'm not saying, My boyfriend fucked another woman. I'm saying, I felt betrayed.”