Matt Gaetz and ‘Reacher’ Star Alan Ritchson Feud – OAN Host Fires Back After His Former HS Classmate Calls Him ‘Motherf**Ker’
Screenshot via Prime Video (L)/Screenshot via One America News Network (R)
Alan Ritchson, the star of Amazon Prime Video’s Reacher, and Matt Gaetz are leading the race for the most peculiar feud of the year after the former high school classmates took shots at each other this week.
Ritchson blasted the former Florida congressman during an interview with GQ. During a discussion about his hit show, Ritchson’s old classmate was brought into the conversation. The pair attended Niceville High School in the Florida panhandle together with Gaetz graduating a year ahead of the actor.
“That motherfucker. We are adversaries,” Ritchson claimed of Gaetz. “It’s shocking to me that the panhandle of Florida continues to vote for somebody — knowing everything we know about him and the promises that he’s made behind closed doors about pardoning certain criminals — he’s just not a good dude!”
Gaetz, who represented western Florida in the House from 2017 until he resigned in December, now hosts a show on One America News Network. He replied to Ritchson’s comments to GQ but said he remembered his old classmate differently.
“Spoiler alert: We were not adversaries. He’s just trying to get Hollywood attention (but not just with the steroids),” Gaetz wrote. “I remember the time his mom (who is wonderful) wouldn’t let me read the Ken Starr Report in 1998 in the NHS computer lab because….(you know).”
In another post, Gaetz said he recalled being on the speech and debate team with Ritchson, and said he knew his family well.
“Hollywood apparently changes people! Alan was a year behind me in high school and we were both on the Speech and Debate Team. We were not “adversaries” as I won debate championships and Alan did more acting stuff,” Gaetz claimed. “As I recall, his older brother Eric won more often than Alan did. He was always very nice to me (and everyone) and his mother, the computer lab monitor, loved me. At her invitation, I even went to his dad’s retirement party from the Air Force.”
Gaetz was nominated to lead the Justice Department by President Donald Trump after the election. Gaetz later withdrew his name amid the release of a House Ethics Committee report that accused him of drug abuse and paying for sex while in Congress.
He denied any wrongdoing.
Ritchson said in his GQ interview he had considered running for office but did not know if it was in his nature while shading his former classmate.
“There’s part of me that wants to get into politics to outdo somebody like [Gaetz] for good, and there’s part of me that’s like, I’m not duplicitous enough to succeed in politics,” the actor said.
