Alan Ritchson went to high school in Florida with politician Matt Gaetz and left with nothing nice to say about him.
In an interview with GQ, the “Reacher” star was asked about his time with the former classmate who would go on to be a reviled politician accused of many things – including paying for sex with an underage girl.
“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!”
He continued, “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. 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 reentered the limelight following President Donald Trump’s reelection. Trump named Gaetz to be his incoming Attorney General and the Florida Congressman quickly resigned from his elected position for this new job. The appointment was met with universal criticism and Gaetz had been under investigation by the House Ethics Committee and removed himself from consideration for the cabinet post a week after being nominated.
That ethics report found that Gaetz paid a 17-year-old girl and other women for sex and also purchased and used illegal drugs in his Capitol Hill office.
Ritchson is far from the only person who dislikes Gaetz. Members of Congress applauded Gaetz’ absence at the beginning of 2025 after a clerk announced that the former U.S. Rep from Florida “will not serve in the House in the 119th Congress.”
