Alan Ritchson is sharing his side of the physical altercation he found himself in with his Tennessee neighbor.
The Reacher star, 43, made headlines in March when bodycam footage of the confrontation was released, showing him getting into a shouting match with a man before punching him in the face.
“It was the scariest thing I’ve ever been through. I don’t like that kind of conflict,” Ritchson said on a recent episode of Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast. “I like to work. I don’t like things that are ill-gotten. I don’t like bad press.”
The Smallville alum had been out with two of his sons riding motorcycles around their suburb when one of his neighbors, identified as Ronnie Taylor, stepped into the road blocking Ritchson’s path.
After stopping his bike, Ritchson can be heard saying in the footage, “Are you f***ing kidding me, bro?” appearing to push Taylor to the ground. Taylor gets up and points his finger in Ritchson’s face, accusing him of “driving around this neighborhood like a f***ing lunatic.”
Speaking on the podcast, Ritchson claimed Taylor “lied to TMZ” about approaching him the day before requesting he slow down while riding through the neighborhood.
“I’ve never met that guy ever in my life. Never seen him before,” Ritchson insisted. “He wasn’t even there when we went up his street.”
The actor noted that he’s well-known by all of his neighbors and that “it’s normal” for people to “gawk or do a slow stare.”
“I think this guy is just doing what everybody does,” he added, admitting he assumed Taylor was an eager fan.
“You could see I’m not really slowing because I didn’t think he’s gonna step in front of me,” Ritchson said. “And then all of a sudden, he steps in front of me, and I’m like, ‘What the hell?’ And that’s when it got weird.
“I wasn’t going fast, and [the bike’s] loud. So, I can understand how somebody who doesn’t know what’s going on might be like, ‘It’s so loud. He’s racing through the neighborhood,’” he acknowledged. “I get myself together. He starts coming at me pretty aggressively. I push him down.”
Ritchson recalled getting close to Taylor and allegedly smelling alcohol. “It’s Sunday at like 11 a.m., this guy’s drunk?” he questioned. “I asked him if he’d been drinking, and he didn’t say anything, and I was like, ‘Alright, that’s what this is.’”
He continued: “So I go to leave, and he gets in front of my bike again, and you can’t really tell on the body camera, but he shoves me — two-handed shoves me — off the bike, me and the bike go to the ground.
“At that point, there’s no more conversation. I’ve gotta protect me, and I’ve gotta protect my kids, and I’ve gotta get us off the street safely,” Rictschon said. “That means getting him out of the picture. So, I hit the guy.”
A representative for Taylor was not immediately available.
The Jack Reacher actor added that the bodycam footage, filmed on his own camera, helped exonerate him.
“If I hadn’t had that, I’d probably still be in jail,” Ritchson said. “They only had that tape to go off, and thank God, I had that premonition to put it on. It changed the course of my life forever.”
Taylor had initially spoken out publicly about the argument, claiming that Ritchson had beaten him up after he confronted him about the speed and noise of his motorcycle.
Following an investigation into the fight, police concluded that Ritchson acted in self-defense. He did not face any criminal charges.
“My kids had to experience that. My kids don’t want to ride with me anymore. He robbed me of that. F*** that dude,” he told Shepard. “I have so much anger. I have so much resentment that I just can’t quite let go of. I have nowhere to go because there’s no real resolution there. I just decided to let it go.”
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