KJ Apa put his “Riverdale” co-star Cole Sprouse on blast for once punching him in the face in a new interview.
Speaking on Tuesday’s “Wildmen” podcast episode, the actor explained that incident, which happened at a strip club, was meant to be a “wake-up” call.
“At this time, I was doing a lot of drugs and a lot of my close friends were worried about me,” the 29-year-old told Cole’s twin brother, Dylan Sprouse, and his co-host Brendan Columbus.
“And he had learned that I was doing drugs again.”
The “Map That Leads to You” star ultimately dubbed the strike a “love punch.”
Dylan, who witnessed the jab, went on to chide Apa for running away from Cole “like an ostrich.”
The “Suite Life of Zack and Cody” alum, 33, remembered, “I looked at my brother after that, and I was like, ‘Dude, you could have just died.’”
Dylan noted that he “made the mistake of trying to chase after” Apa, who was “three blocks away by the time [he] was just, like, getting [his] bearings.”
The former Disney Channel star called Apa instead, quipping, “You might still have the voicemail.”
Dylan felt the interaction highlighted Apa and Cole’s “beautiful” bond while respectively playing Archie Andrews and Jughead on the CW show, which ran from 2017 to 2023.
It made Dylan feel “safe” to know his sibling was filming in Canada with “someone who’s … of a similar mentality to him, [a] similar kind of person.’”
Cole’s rep did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.
Elsewhere in the sitdown, Apa opened up about his struggles with addiction and a “gnarly” eating disorder.
“I used to eat donuts all day long. Go back to my trailer, throw up,” he said before describing one experience where he binged fast food — and then took it outside and peed on it to stop himself.
Apa later got “hungry again” after purging and “ate around the piss.”
He added, “I had so many things that I was doing that were so unhealthy that kind of bred throughout that show, maybe because of … the environment, having my shirt off all the time. Even just experiencing fame.”
Apa went public with his sobriety last year, crediting his change with son Sasha’s birth.
If you or someone you care about is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
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