Reacher actor Alan Ritchson had choice words when slamming his former classmate Matt Gaetz during a GQ interview.
“That motherf**ker. We are adversaries," Ritchson said of the disgraced former GOP Florida Congressman who has been embroiled in controversy.
Ritchson, who went to the same high school as Gaetz, continued expressing his utter shock at the support the former Congressman received despite allegations of sex trafficking, sexual misconduct, and illicit drug use coming to light while serving as a member of Congress.
“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!” Ritchson said.
The actor, also known for roles in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Blue Mountain State, spent much of his childhood in Niceville, Florida, and graduated in 2001 from Niceville High School a year after Gaetz graduated.
He added:
“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.”
Fans praised him for his unapologetic takedown of Gaetz.
In November 2024, Gaetz resigned from Congress after Trump tapped him as his pick for Attorney General.
A week later, Gaetz dropped out from AG consideration six minutes before CNN planned to publish further details about the lawmaker's sexual misconduct allegations. But he claimed his confirmation "was unfairly becoming a distraction" as Trump and then-Vice President-elect JD Vance were preparing to move into the White House.
CNN reported that the woman who previously claimed to have had sex with Gaetz when she was 17 informed the House Ethics Committee she had two sexual encounters with him at one party in 2017.
The woman said the second sexual encounter, which was previously unreported, involved another woman.
When CNN's Paula Reid reached out to Gaetz for comment on the story and informed him they were going to break the story at 12:30 p.m. that Thursday, he conveniently made his dramatic announcement to drop out of AG contention.
Gaetz has continued to deny any wrongdoing.
Since resigning from Congress and withdrawing his name from AG consideration, Gaetz ventured into creating custom-made message videos for fans through Cameo.
In January 2025, Gaetz began hosting a weeknight political talk show called, The Matt Gaetz Show, on the far-right cable channel, One America News Network (OAN).
Ritchson, who is a devout Christian, isn't shy about speaking out against critics. He denounced Trump in a separate cover story interview in April 2024 with The Hollywood Reporter.
In the interview, Ritchson called Trump "a rapist and a con man, and yet the entire Christian church seems to treat him like he’s their poster child and it’s unreal. I don’t understand it."
He added:
"Christians today have become the most vitriolic tribe. It is so antithetical to what Jesus was calling us to be and to do."
In his recent interview with GQ, Ritchson went after the ultra-religious contingent who criticize his acting roles and have a hard time separating the actor from his characters.
"People have this weird relationship with fictional characters and sort of equate that to the real human being," said the 42-year-old.
"I don’t have that problem, making that distinction. I get criticized a lot by Christians who are like, ‘How dare you have an unmarried sex scene on TV and then talk about Jesus?’ "
"I’m sorry—I doubt that’s going to be part of the conversation when I’m standing at the pearly gates!"
The third season of Reacher started streaming on February 20 on Amazon Prime.
