Alan Ritchson says everyone misunderstood viral motorbike fight video in first interview

Earlier this year footage of Alan Ritchson emerged, showing him getting into an altercation with one of his neighbours.

It is not every day that you see a well-known celebrity getting into a fist-fight on the front lawn of a leafy suburb so, unsurprisingly, the incident went fully viral online.

Ritchson got into the fight with his neighbour Ronnie Taylor, with footage showing Taylor standing in front of the actor in the middle of the road whilst he was riding his motorbike with his kids. The two then proceeded to get into a scuffle in which Ritchson proceeded to hit Taylor several times. Police were called but decided that Ritchson had been acting in self-defence.

The actor has stayed silent on this, until now, discussing the incident on Armchair Expert with Dax Shepherd whilst promoting his new film Motor City.

Ritchson claimed that Taylor ‘lied’ about the incident in the viral video and subsequent interviews

The Reacher star claimed that people have ‘no context’ for the video, stating that he has recently gotten the rights to Moto GP for a movie and so has been riding ‘every kind of bike’ to prepare for the film.

In the footage seen by millions online however Taylor claims he has told Ritchson off previously for riding loudly in their neighbourhood, something that he totally denies.

He told Shepherd: “The bike I was riding that day I had just received, it was custom built for me and it was exceptionally loud so I never left first gear… We’re hardly moving.

“It was our first time around. I've never met that guy ever in my life. Never seen him before. He lied to TMZ about us like I told him the day before, ‘Hey buddy, you should really slow down.’ None of that was true… Every day we do that kind of thing.”

Explaining the incident Ritchson stated that when Taylor, who he called a ‘big guy’, got close to his face he ‘pushed him back’ and claimed he could smell alcohol on his neighbour’s breath. Ritchson’s children were riding with him, and he said he ‘needed to get them out safely’ and so that’s when he hit Taylor to ‘get him out the way’.

Ritchson called it the ‘scariest thing he’s ever been through’

The incident caused a huge stir online, with Ritchson particularly coming under fire until his body warn camera footage leaked, making it obvious he was acting in self-defence.

The actor stated that this was his first time wearing the body-worn rig which uses your phone to record, and stated he ‘would still be in jail’ if it wasn’t for that footage which exonerated him.

Despite this, Ritchson called the incident the ‘scariest thing he’s ever been through’ when Shepherd asked what it was like for the video to go viral.

He said: “I don’t like that kind of conflict, I don’t like bad press… and then my kids had to experience that… my kids won’t ride with me anymore. Like he robbed me of that, f*ck that dude, f*ck that, I have so much anger and so much resentment that I just can’t quite let go of because there’s no real resolution there.

“I just decided to let it go but he still took a lot from me.” The 43-year-old actor said he was ‘terrified’ because he ‘thought his career had tanked’ and claimed that CEOs were calling him to ask what the tape was and if their projects together were okay.