Alan Ritchson is finally giving “context” to his headline-making brawl with a Tennessee neighbor in March.
The actor appeared on “Armchair Expert” Monday, discussing the “scariest thing [he’s] ever been through” with co-hosts Dax Shepard and Monica Padman.
The “Reacher” star insisted he was “putting along” and “hardly moving” on his motorbike when he was allegedly confronted by Ronnie Taylor, who “all of a sudden stepped in front of” him and his kids on the street.
“That’s when it got weird,” Ritchson said of the viral street scuffle, alleging Taylor “came at [him] pretty aggressively” and was “huge — the same size as me.”
The 43-year-old claimed he “smell[ed] alcohol” on the man’s breath and repeatedly tried to leave, which was when he allegedly got “two-hand shoved off the bike.”
He recalled, “At that point, there’s no conversation. I’ve got to protect me and got to protect my kids and get us off the street safely, and that means getting the guy out of the picture. So I hit the guy.”
The experience, Ritchson claimed, “robbed” him of bike rides with his sons because he “can’t convince them to do it” anymore — and he doesn’t “blame them” for not wanting to “deal with that dude” again.
“F–k that,” the “Smallville” alum quipped, acknowledging the “anger” and “resentment” he still feels toward Taylor.
“My wife, [Catherine “Cat” Ritchson], was at a retreat,” Alan noted. “I had no way to contact her. I was the sole caretaker of my kids … calming them down, assuring them, ‘I’m not gonna get arrested, I don’t think,’ [with an] army of cops on my porch.”
The “War Machine” star, who ultimately did not face criminal charges, was “terrified” and “thought [his] entire career [had] tanked.”
He went on to share the “premonition” or “intuition” that “saved [his] life” that day — buying a body camera a year prior and wearing it the morning of the fight for the very first time.
“If anything makes you go, ‘Maybe God is real,’ it’s [that],” he said. “If I hadn’t had that, dude, I’d probably still be in jail. The cops came to arrest me that day and only had [a tape from a neighbor] to go off of. … [My video] changed the course of my life forever.”
Until Monday’s interview, Alan has stayed silent about the altercation aside from a pointed social media post about “never interrupt[ing] your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
Taylor, meanwhile, went public with photos of his injuries and spoke to media outlets about the fight, giving a description Alan disputed on the podcast.
“I’ve never met that guy ever in my life,” he alleged. “Never seen him before. He lied to TMZ about [telling us] the day before, ‘Hey, buddy. Slow down.’ None of that was true.”
In his March police statement, Alan insisted Taylor “was the aggressor,” adding, “I was forced to defend myself. This is the first time in my life I have had to protect myself with force.”
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