Riverdale star Lili Reinhart says she was sexually harassed as a teenager

Riverdale star Lili Reinhart has shared her own story of sexual harassment from an older man following the slew of allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein.

The actress, who plays Betty Cooper on the Netflix show, said she was sharing her experience to show how common assault and harassment is in the industry.

“I was a teenager working on a project.. when I started to have a crush on a guy I was working with.

He was incredibly charming and charismatic – we flirted for a while before we went on our first date. He was pretty significantly older than me, but I thought of myself as mature so it didn’t seem like a big deal.

Reinhart said she managed to walk away, but said “I remember feeling like this was a scene right out of a horror movie.”

She added: “After awkward silence and me feeling completely violated and uncomfortable, he convinced me to get in his car – I assumed he was going to drive me home. I didn’t have any money and couldn’t afford a taxi or an Uber. So I figured it was okay.

“The next day I tried to talk to him about the situation. I told him how uncomfortable it made me and how wrong it felt.

“Thinking back on it now, the situation is hard for me to swallow. I was so young and didn’t know how to handle the situation. I just knew how wrong it felt and that I had been violated.

Reinhart said in the days following the man grew angry at the situation and became defensive.

She added that he said she was “a tease” and “the most manipulative woman he’d ever met”.

She continued: “I felt like I had genuinely done something wrong – that maybe I really was being a tease to him and led him to believe that I wanted to be with him sexually.”

“If I said something, maybe the production would be halted… people would be put out of work. I would be looked at as dramatic and a diva, no one would want to work with me again.”

“I stand with them. I believe them. I believe in standing up for yourself as a woman and coming forward about sexual harassment.

“I’m coming forward about my own experience to further express how common these assaults are in this industry and how important it is that we take action to fight against it.”