KJ Apa Was a Virgin For the 'First Couple Years' of 'Riverdale,' Recalls Sex with Co-Stars

In a joint interview for Entertainment Weekly with his The Map That Leads to You co-star Madelyn Cline, the two opened up about how the casts of Riverdale and Outer Banks, respectively, became close on and off the set of the teen dramas. And according to Apa, the cast of Riverdale got a little too close behind the scenes.

"Yeah, there's a lot of drama that comes on shows like that. Not to say in like a gossipy kind of way, but it's just part of the environment, I guess. Part of the deal," said Apa, who starred as Archie Andrews on Riverdale, which ran for seven seasons from 2017 until 2023.

Cline -- who is currently filming the fifth and final season of Outer Banks in South Carolina -- noted that the casts become "family," to which Apa interjected, "You hook up with them, people hook up with each other."

Apa, 28, went on to note -- and per EW, continued to stress -- that the co-stars on teen shows "have sex" with one another.

"You have sex with them and stuff, and then things start happening," he explained. "And then things get a little complicated, and then you're on set, and now you're fighting with them," said the actor, who wasn't romantically linked with any of his co-stars during Riverdale's run. (However, Riverdale co-stars Lili Reinhart and Cole Sprouse, and Camila Mendes and Charles Melton, respectively, publicly dated. Cline also notably dated her Outer Banks co-star, Chase Stokes, her on-screen love interest on the Netflix series.)

Cline replied to Apa by asking, "So it's the same in Vancouver?" referring to where Riverdale was shot.

"You sort of just have sex with them, and then you just sort of see what happens. It's just part of the deal," Apa said, with him and Cline laughing over the topic.

Apa then shared a revelation about his sex life, revealing he was a virgin until a few years after Riverdale premiered.

"I was a virgin when I started on that show, too, for the first couple years," said Apa, who was 19 in the show's first season. "I was a proud Christian boy. I was."

While the New Zealand-born star wasn't publicly linked with any of his Riverdale co-stars during his time on the show, he first sparked romance rumors with model Clara Berry in 2020. In May 2021, Apa and Berry revealed they were expecting their first child. Their son Sasha was born in September 2021. The pair confirmed they called it quits in February 2024.