Lili why did you call Beronica "fanfiction" and said "it wasn't our show" despite filming a kiss scene with Camilla?
Iāve avoided dealing with the backlash that I got from this interview for a while now because of how upset it has made me.Having people call me homophobic is absolutely heartbreaking considering I have been a huge supporter of gay rights ever since I was old enough to understand what the word āgayā meant.
In this interview that I had back in January, I was asked about Beronica and if Betty and Veronica were ever going to be together on our show. I said āour show isnāt fan fiction,ā when respondingā¦ and I understand how that was taken the wrong way. It was an naive thing to sayā I did not use the right words to get across what I meant to say. In no way did I mean that having two girls in a relationship was fan fiction. Showing a lesbian/gay couple on tv is something that I whole heartedly support. The truth of the matter isā in the context of the question āwill Betty and Veronica be romantically involved?ā I called it fan fiction. Not the right wordsā but to me, calling Beronica fan fiction didnāt mean that I was saying a f/f relationship was unusual or never going to happen. I only meant that having Betty and Veronica in a relationship on Riverdale would technically be something that resulted from fans banding together to push for that story. Because the direction of our show at that point had portrayed Betty and Veronica as two straight women. So thatās what the words āfan fictionā meant to me. Something that the fans wanted that wasnāt actually happening on the show. And I knew at the time that Betty and Veronica were not going to be romantically involved.
Which also leads me to address people calling me a queer-baiter. A term I wasnāt familiar with until people started telling me that I was one. I had tweeted things about Beronicaā¦ how we were going to have more of it in our show. I didnāt understand why people were saying I was queerbaiting by showing my support of Beronica. I soon realized that the name Beronica wasnāt platonic or representative as a friendship, but rather a name meant to describe Betty and Veronica as a romantic couple. So by saying our show was going to have more Beronica, I was unintentionally promoting Betty and Veronica as a gay couple on our show instead of the friends that they are. I was unintentionally telling our fans that we would be portraying a lesbian relationship because I didnāt understand the term correctly. I used it in the wrong wayā using Beronica as just the B & V best friend duo rather than a f/f relationship.
And truly, if our writers decided to have Betty and Veronica in a relationship, I would completely support it. But it is my job as an actress to follow the script and play the role as the writers/creator have intended it to be played. And with our show Riverdale, Betty is romantically interested in men at this point. Not to say it couldnāt change in the futureā¦ but I have no control over that. All I can do is state my support for whatever they choose to do with Bettyās sexuality.
Truly, I have felt incredibly hurt that people would call me homophobic because of an interview. I didnāt want to address the situation because I felt so angry that people would say something like that about me which I knew wasnāt true. But I realized that it was easy for people to call me homophobic from just an interview because they donāt know who I am. Theyāve never met me or spent time with me. No one out there calling me that knows my historyā¦ that I have grown up supporting gay rightsā¦ I wrote my high school senior paper on my support of gay marriageā¦ one of my best friends in the world is pansexual. I openly support and embrace the LGBT community in my life as much as I can and on a daily basis. And it hurts that people berate me for choosing the wrong words in an interview. But I hope that this post has brought some clarity to the situation and everyone can see where my heart lies. I donāt want people to believe something about me that simply isnāt true.
I hope anyone who was offended by my interview can accept my apology. X
