Former Silver Spoons child star Ricky Schroder catapulted into the headlines last week after he proudly helped bail out Kyle Rittenhouse. The Kenosha shooter was awaiting trial on murder charges in Wisconsin after he was caught on tape while opening fire (with a semi-automatic rifle) into a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters, killing two people (and wounding a third) in the process. The 17-year-old was defended by Tucker Carlson (which led to people calling for his Fox News firing) in the immediate aftermath, and three months later, Schroder is now defending himself for the bail-out move.
Schroder sounds pretty angry. Online backlash already upset him enough that he called police and posed with a gun, but now, he’s spoken more openly with the New York Post. As the actor explained, he felt “infuriated” because Kyle “was there to defend property.” Schroder’s words probably won’t help him win over any new online supporters for his cause, but nonetheless, he feels that Rittenhouse is “innocent”:
“It made me mad. This boy is innocent and he will be proven innocent. I did what any father should’ve done, and that’s get a kid out of jail that doesn’t deserve to be there… This was Kyle’s life being destroyed… This is his freedom at risk. It infuriated me to see an innocent 17-year-old young man being tried and found guilty before trial.”
Schroder also likened the charges against the teenager with allegations that were made against him in May 2019. At the time, Schroder was arrested after his girlfriend accused him of punching her, but prosecutors did not charge him over the alleged incident. “It sucked because everybody thought I was a woman beater, and I’m not a woman beater,” Schroder told the New York Post. “I was tried and convicted in the court of the media. But you have to understand, that’s only my reputation that was being destroyed.”
Again, Rittenhouse was caught on film while firing his gun at protesters who took to the streets after the police shooting of Jacob Blake, yet Schroder bailed the teenager out of jail because he’s convinced that Rittenhouse is not guilty of the charges against him. The teen’s bail had been set at $2 million due to being considered a flight risk, and he could face, at minimum, decades in prison if convicted.
(Via New York Post, AP, New York Times & CNN)