Tempers flared between a Netflix film crew and a Vancouver busker Wednesday night, in an exchange caught on camera.
The video, captured on Robson St. in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery, shows a back and forth between street performer Babe Coal and Cole Sprouse, the actor who plays Jughead on The CW’s Riverdale.
The video begins in the middle of the exchange, with Sprouse asking the busker to stop playing so that the crew can shoot a scene.
“We’re begging you, our production in there is – we can’t film anything,” he says to Coal.
She replies by saying she’s willing to leave if the crew compensates her for giving up her space.
Sprouse then turns to a crowd that has assembled and implies the singer is trying to take advantage of the production.
“If you don’t know how this works, this is one of the secrets of film production. We give a location to the city, and then some scam artists come out and start claiming…”
The audio becomes indistinct at this point as the busker interjects to say she plays at the location every day, and that the cast has come into her space.
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“What you guys are is cheap,” she can be heard saying as several members of the Riverdale cast walk away.
Coal later took to social media to defend herself, writing that she had complied with a producer by lowering the volume on her amplifier before two more crew members came over and threatened her with police.
She added that “short edited videos don’t show the whole thing,” and that Sprouse “acted like a spoiled brat” and tried to bully her with his popularity.
Vancouver police confirm they were called to the scene and said officers tried to mediate the situation, but Coal chose not to compromise.
Police said they made no arrests, but the incident has been documented in case a ‘pattern of disruptive behaviour’ develops.
It’s not the first time the busker has been in the spotlight; she challenged the city’s busking bylaw last August, and the city of North Vancouver’s in 2014.
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