Cheryl Blossom is Bisexual, According to ‘Riverdale’ Star Madelaine Petsch

· Updated on May 28, 2018

By now Riverdale has solidified its place in the world of young adult dramait’s dark, twisted, and shadowy in all the right places. But it’s about to get a whole lot more interesting: Madelaine Petsch, who plays Riverdale High’s queen bee Cheryl Blossom, said her character is definitely bisexual.

On the show, Cheryl has always had a strange attachment to Josie (Ashleigh Murray). Petsch recorded a Q video for her YouTube channel Wednesday and addressed Cheryl and Josie, who fans have speculated about for awhile.

“Cheryl just wants to have friends, and wants to be loved and wants to be surrounded by people,” Petsch began. “Josie is the only person who has shown interest in her, as a friend even. She doesn’t understand feelings very well, and I think she’s mucking up a friendship with romantic feelings, because she’s never really felt love before. … Josie has extended a hand in friendship, and Cheryl is either misreading it, or … has become obsessed with the idea of having somebody in her life because she’s been alone her entire life.”

After quite a bit of dancing around the subject, Petsch finally gave the people what we wanted.

“[Cheryl] is still figuring out what her sexuality is,” she said.“She is definitely interested in both women and men, so I would say she is bisexual.” The 23-year old actress teased that fans can expect a whole lot more of Cheryl “figuring out who she is,” as well as noting that Cheryl definitely hasn’t handled her feelings for Josie correctly “at all.”

Hopefully, the Riverdale writers will follow in Madelaine’s footsteps and explicitly define Cheryl’s sexuality. Even though bisexual people make up the majority of the LGBTQ community, they are scarcely represented in media. While “sexually fluid is a totally valid label, it’s easy for bisexual people to feel shafted by TV shows who refuse to label characters as bisexual. Bi-erasure still runs rampant in media, unfortunately.GLAAD reported that the number of bisexual characters on TV actually dropped both this year and the previous year.

Riverdale has already taken major steps in the right direction: In addition to having a fully realized openly gay character, Kevin Keller (Casey Cott), Jughead love interestToni Topaz (VanessaMorgan) revealed she has dated both men and women in an episode earlier this season.“I’m more into girls anyways,” she told Jughead (Cole Sprouse)upon learning he’s still hung up on his ex.

So let’s Cheryl Blossom will help provide greater representation for bisexual women this year.

Photo via CHRIS DELMAS/AFP/Getty Images

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