Matt Gaetz has fired back at Reacher star Alan Ritchson who, when reflecting on his childhood classmate, said: “That motherf----r.”
“Hollywood apparently changes people!” Gaetz said on X Thursday afternoon, after Ritchson got sweary when describing the former Florida representative in an interview with GQ ahead of the release of Reacher’s new season.
“That motherf----r. We are adversaries,” Ritchson told the outlet. However, Gaetz recalls their history differently.
“We were not ‘adversaries’ as I won debate championships and Alan did more acting stuff,” Gaetz said. “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.”
Gaetz also claimed that Ritchson’s mother, Vicke, invited him to a retirement party for the actor’s dad, Dave.
“At her invitation, I even went to his dad’s retirement party from the Air Force. It was held at a karaoke bar called ‘Lewbos’ in Niceville where his dad sang ‘Sitting on the Dock of the Bay,’” Gaetz said.
In the GQ interview, Ritchson said he was stumped as to why Floridans opted to vote for 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!” the actor said.
“There’s part of me that wants to get into politics to outdo somebody like him for good, and there’s part of me that’s like, I’m not duplicitous enough to succeed in politics,” Ritchson continued. “There are certain people that do a good job of staying true to who they are, but they’re ineffective. I think Bernie Sanders is a hero. But it’s like, what has he accomplished?”
Gaetz resigned from Congress last November after President Donald Trump nominated him for U.S. attorney general. The former congressman proceeded to withdraw from consideration a week later after a slew of reports on his alleged sexual misconduct came to light.
