‘Riverdale’ Season 2: Madelaine Petsch Introduces Us to New Cast Member (And Bestie!)

madelaine petsch bisexual
credit: DFree/Shutterstock.com

In her latest vlog, Madelaine Petsch, a.k.a. Cheryl Blossom, a.k.a. president of flawless makeup and hair that never moves, introduced us to her best friend and Riverdale‘s latest cast addition, Vanessa Morgan.

Vanessa joins Riverdale season two as Toni Topaz, a Southside Serpent. Vanessa explained,

“Toni is one of Jughead’s first friends at Southside High. I might stir up the pot a little bit!”

Wait, stir the put? Um…we like you and everything, Vanessa, but you better not come anywhere NEAR Jughead and Betty, ok? We already know there’s going to be trouble for our favorite couple next season, so this is a tad worrying.

We don’t want to go into this season already annoyed with Toni Topaz, so we’ll forget this little tidbit for now and focus on the adorable IRL friendship of Madelaine and Vanessa.

They met two years ago at a screen test for Riverdale, where Vanessa was testing for Josie and Madelaine for Cheryl. Madelaine said,

“We became friends at the studio test, and then at the network test we exchanged Instagrams and we kept in touch. We kept each other updated on the [casting] process and how it was going.”

Even though Vanessa wasn’t cast as Josie, she and Madelaine stayed in touch, talking on the phone every day of Riverdale season one shooting.

Riverdale season two premieres Oct. 11, which means Madelaine will have to start protecting her best friend from crazy Bughead shippers on the internet (no, we are not one of them, how dare you.)

Vanessa seems like a super cool addition to the cast, so we’ll just keep telling ourselves we’ll be fine.


Anne Catherine Demere
Anne Catherine Demere is an intern with Femestella. She is almost too passionate about pop culture and the entertainment industry and she loves to write about it. One of her favorite things is when feminism and pop culture overlap. She's either starting a new TV show or in class, there's no in between. And those two rarely coincide.