Matt Gaetz is clapping back at Alan Ritchson, who called him a “motherfucker” earlier this week.
While speaking with GQ, the Reacher actor revealed he went to school with controversial politician Matt Gaetz while growing up in Florida. “That motherfucker. We are adversaries,” Ritchson said. “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!”
The former U.S. representative then decided to take to his personal and professional X (formerly Twitter) accounts on Thursday to respond to Ritchson.
“Hollywood apparently changes people!” he wrote. “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. 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 added on his professional account, “Spoiler alert: We were not adversaries. He’s just trying to get Hollywood attention (but not just with the steroids).”
Elsewhere in his interview with GQ, Ritchson said that a part of him “wants to get into politics to outdo somebody like him [Gaetz] for good, and there’s part of me that’s like, I’m not duplicitous enough to succeed in politics.”
Gaetz, the former U.S. representative for Florida’s 1st congressional district, was accused of child sex trafficking and statutory rape in 2020, but following an investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice decided not to charge him. At the end of 2024, he left his role as a U.S. representative after being nominated for U.S. attorney general by the Trump administration. However, he gave up his bid amid sexual misconduct allegations released in a House Ethics Committee report.