K.J. Apa slammed his “Riverdale” co-star Cole Sprouse for punching him in the face once in a new interview.
On Tuesday’s podcast episode, “Wild Men,” the actor explained that the incident at the strip club was meant to be a “wake-up call.”
“A lot of my close friends were worried about me because I was doing a lot of drugs at the time,” the 29-year-old told Cole’s twin brother Dylan Sprouse and co-host Brendan Columbus.
“Then he found out I was doing drugs again.”
The “Map That Follows You” star ultimately called the strike a “love punch.”
Dylan, who witnessed the jab, scolded Apa for running away from Cole “like an ostrich”.
“Then I looked at my brother and thought, ‘Dude, you could have died,'” the 33-year-old “Suite Life of Zack and Cody” alum recalled.
Dylan said he “made a mistake in trying to chase” Apa, adding that Apa was “three blocks away by the time (he) just got his bearings.”
The former Disney Channel star called Apa instead and quipped, “I might still have a voicemail.”
Dylan, who played Archie Andrews and Jughead, respectively, on the CW show, which aired from 2017 to 2023, felt the interaction highlighted the “beautiful” bond between Apa and Cole.
Dylan felt “relieved” to know that his brother was filming in Canada with “a similar mentality to him, (a) similar kind of person.”
A representative for Mr. Cole did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.
Elsewhere in the roundtable, Apa opened up about her struggles with addiction and a “horrible” eating disorder.
“I’ve been eating donuts all day. Go back to the trailer and throw up,” he said, before recounting a time when he devoured fast food and stopped himself by taking it outside to pee.
Apa later said that after purging, she was “hungry again” and “ate a lot of urine.”
He added, “I was doing so many unhealthy things that it was prevalent throughout that show. Probably because of…the environment, I always took my shirt off, and just going through the fame.”
Apa went public with his sobriety last year and attributed his change to the birth of his son Sasha.
If you or a loved one is affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please call SAMHSA’s national helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
