Alan Ritchson Kierra Thorn/Getty Images Alan Ritchson has broken his silence about that viral motorcycle fight outside his Tennessee home.
The Reacher star, on the promotional rounds for his latest film Motor City and the forthcoming season of the Amazon Prime global hit series, stopped by Armchair Expert for an interview with podcast hosts Dax Shepard and Monica Padman, telling the pair that the altercation was the “scariest” experience he’s ever been through. He also used the word “terrified,” adding that he was afraid it would tank his “entire career” because it was so intense and covered so widely.
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Ritchson found himself at the center of a news cycle in March following an explosive altercation with a neighbor in the Nashville suburb of Brentwood, Tennessee. Clips of the incident went viral, and local police concluded that the Ritchson acted in self-defense in the tussle with a man named Ronnie Taylor. As such, police closed the investigation and declined to pursue charges in the matter.
It all started when Ritchson was riding his motorcycle through the neighborhood with his sons while his longtime wife, Cat Ritchson, was away at a wellness retreat. Taylor confronted him in the street to complain about the noise and disturbance, and it was later revealed that Taylor instigated physical contact by shoving Ritchson twice, causing the actor to fall, injure himself and act in self-defense by hitting back. Taylor gave an interview to TMZ and claimed that he had confronted Ritchson the day before by asking him to slow down while riding through the neighborhood.
During his Armchair Expert interview, Ritchson shot down that claim, and said the altercation marked the first time they had exchanged words. “I’ve never met that guy ever in my life,” Ritchson stated. “Never seen him before. He lied to TMZ about [saying] the day before, ‘Hey, buddy. Slow down.’ None of that was true.” He added that he was “putting along” and “hardly moving” when Taylor came out in the street and “stepped in front of him” to confront the actor.
Ritchson’s story was confirmed by footage taken from his body camera and provided to the police. As fate would have it, the actor was wearing a body camera for the first time. He chalked it up to a life-saving decision, and credited it to “intuition.”
“If anything makes you go, ‘Maybe God is real,’ it’s [that]. 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 recording from Taylor] to go off of,” he explained, citing footage that was allegedly provided to TMZ and police by the neighbor. “[My video] changed the course of my life forever.”
It may have left him in the clear, but the situation has had other consequences. Ritchson also stated how the incident has made it so that his sons no longer want to ride with their father. “I can’t convince them to do it anymore,” he said, adding that he doesn’t blame them for their decision.
See the full interview below.
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The interview comes on the heels of Ritchson’s appearance on Josh Horowitz’s podcast, Happy Sad Confused, during which he unloaded on politics and the Epstein files. “I think people are a little bit afraid of me because they’re like, ‘He’s a loose cannon,’ and I’m not,” Ritchson said. “I’m just saying the shit that everybody should say if they give a shit about humanity. Everybody else should feel like I feel.”
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