Kyle Rittenhouse, the 18-year-old who was acquitted in the shooting deaths that occurred during last year’s rioting in Kenosha, announced his intention to sue news companies and celebrities for spreading “lies” about him.
QUICK FACTS:
- Kyle Rittenhouse plans to sue the media personalities that told lies about him while he was being tried for murder in Wisconsin.
- The suit is part of the teen’s initiative to combat “lies” from media outlets and high-profile personalities, according to The New York Post.
- The now-18-year-old told Tucker Carlson on Monday that the team will look to “hold accountable” those that lied about him while he was being investigated and tried for murder.
- Among the news organizations named were ABC News and The Young Turks, neither of which immediately returned a request for comment from Fox News, according to the network.
WHAT KYLE SAID IN HIS INTERVIEW:
- “Me and my team have decided to launch The Media Accountability Project as a tool to help fundraise and hold the media accountable for the lies they said and deal with them in court,” Rittenhouse said Monday on Fox News.
- “I don’t want to see anybody else have to deal with what I went through,” he told Tucker Carlson. “Well, right now, we’re looking at quite a few politicians, celebrities, athletes, Whoopi Goldberg’s on the list,” Rittenhouse said. “She called me a ‘murderer’ after I was acquitted by a jury of my peers. She went on to still say that.”
- “We’re going to hold everybody who lied about me accountable, such as everybody who lied called me a White supremacist,” Rittenhouse said. “They’re all going to be held accountable. And we’re going to handle them in a courtroom.”
BACKGROUND:
- Rittenhouse was found not guilty following the deadly shooting during the 2020 Kenosha riots, as NBCDFW reported.
- He received support from another teen who was maligned in the news, Nicholas Sandman, a Covington High School student who sued news organizations for their coverage of him in 2019 following an exchange with a Native American man that was twisted by perception.
