I Love How Much Lili Reinhart’s New Boyfriend Hates Cole Sprouse

Lili Reinhart has a new man-friend, and I’ll be honest: I cannot stop talking about this beautiful love story with everyone I know, in every group chat I’m in. The best part of it all is that this news probably wouldn’t have even made it on my radar were it not for the excruciatingly, deliciously petty circumstances in which we’ve all learned of its existence.

Allow me to explain: Earlier this week, Reinhart was spotted kissing actor and TikToker Jack Martin outside a Los Angeles airport. Shortly after Martin was identified, fans resurfaced his appearance on the Barstool podcast PlanBri Uncut from March. On the podcast, before any of us knew of his romance with Reinhart, Martin performed a masterful Saturday Night Live!-level parody of Reinhart’s ex, Cole Sprouse, and his appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast, also in March. I’ve never seen such naked disdain for a partner’s ex, and I adored every second of it.

As a refresh, Spouse’s appearance on CHD caught a fair amount of heat, as he wore the most pretentious thing a man can possibly wear (an unbuttoned, white button-down shirt); did the most pretentious thing a man can possibly do (smoked a cigarette indoors, whilst complaining that no one is allowed to smoke cigarettes indoors anymore); and did the most unforgivable thing a man can possibly do (spoke on his ex-girlfriend—Reinhart—and essentially blamed her for the downfall of their relationship).

Martin’s stop on PlanBri, dressed in Sprouse’s exact outfit with two cigarettes hanging out of his mouth and one behind his ear, took Sprouse to task for all of it. Let me just preface this: I find straight, male TikTokers to be woefully unfunny in general. But for Martin and his palpable disgust for Sprouse, for the enchanting love letter he gifted to Reinhart with this performance, I can make an exception.

Immediately, when PlanBri hosts Brianna LaPaglia and Grace O’Malley introduce Martin as the third Sprouse brother and ask him who his favorite influencer is, he strikes a pensive pose and responds, “Socrates,” while also telling the women, “I feel like you guys don’t read.” He continues, “Yeah, can I smoke in here? Society is OK with weed, but then I come on your podcast, unbutton my shirt all the way, and chain-smoke American spirits, and I’m an asshole?” I could literally feel Cole Sprouse in the room with me as I watched.

At another point, LaPaglia and O’Malley ask Martin (as Sprouse) whether he has a good relationship with his parents, a topic that Sprouse discussed at length during his CHD episode. Martin responds, “In many ways, yes, but in many ways no. It’s just, I don’t judge them for any of the things they did. Like, they didn’t read the New Yorker or The Atlantic which is pretty much all I do.” Finally, asked why his relationship with his girlfriend ended, with the most pompous body language possible, Martin replies, “I don’t want to put judgment on anyone…but it was her fucking fault completely.”

All I can say is, Martin was clearly seated and taking notes during Sprouse’s CHD episode. And I respect that!

This, in my opinion, is the epitome of modern love, the ultimate grand gesture, the 2023 equivalent of standing under your lady’s window and holding up a boombox. Mind you, I have no strong feelings about Sprouse, or Reinhart, or the circumstances of their break-up—only that I found it off-putting how much Sprouse was willing to speak about the relationship on CHD. Among other things, he talked about how Reinhart and him both “did quite a bit of damage to each other,” claimed he should have left the relationship much sooner and should have been “more selfish” (ha ha!), and finally, when asked who ultimately pulled the trigger on the relationship, claimed that he was the one who dumped Reinhart. It all felt fairly disrespectful toward her and, quite deservingly so, Sprouse quickly became Twitter’s villain of the day for his comments on his ex and Riverdale co-star.

All of this brings me back to Jack Martin. As something of a professional hater myself, there’s almost nothing more romantic to me than a partner who hates—like, hates—your shitty, toxic exes. It brings a smile to my face to picture Reinhart and Martin cuddled up, watching Sprouse’s CHD interview at 0.5x speed, relentlessly mocking it and prepping for his ruthless parody performance, with Reinhart giving tips on how to best embody and excoriate the man who ruined her life. Long live this new ship—and may we all someday find a partner willing to hop on a podcast to mock our worst ex into oblivion.