Lili Reinhart, known for her portrayal of Betty Cooper for all seven seasons of Netflix‘s Riverdale, has admitted how the show being the “butt of a joke” was “difficult” for her.
The series, which started in 2017, will have its finale this week (August 23rd), bringing to a close a seven-season-long and six-year journey. However, the show has often been ridiculed online, which some of the cast have struggled with.
Speaking to Vulture, Reinhart expressed gratitude for the work: “We can all be happy that we had a fucking consistent job for seven years. I could speak for probably all of us: We will never again do something that’s 100-plus episodes.”
Despite the hard work and job security, the show has been “made fun of a lot”. Reinhart continued: “People see clips taken out of context and are like, ‘What? I thought this was about teenagers.’ It’s really not been easy to feel that you’re the butt of a joke.”
She further elaborated on the toll of “the absurdity of our show became a talking point”, explaining that “it was difficult” while also acknowledging “That’s the whole point. When we’re doing our table reads and something ridiculous happens, Roberto [Aguirre-Sacasa] is laughing because he understands the absurdity and the campiness.”
If it’s not people deriding the show, obsessive fans are too invested – Cole Sprouse, known for playing the lead in Riverdale, recently revealed that he’d received death threats from fans following his real-life break-up with Reinhart.
“I get a lot of stuff sent to my house or my loved ones’ houses,” Sprouse explained. “Death threats, really nasty, honestly criminal stuff. And I do think it’s because at least four of us at this table have dated our co-workers.”
