Kyle Rittenhouse, who has been smeared by the media as a “murderer,” “vigilante,” and a “white supremacist,” worked multiple jobs as a kid, including serving as a janitor and fry cook, to help support his mother Wendy Rittenhouse and two sisters.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday night, before his exclusive sit-down interview with Rittenhouse, emphasized the class divide between the 18-year-old’s media elite critics and the boy’s upbringing.
“It’s hard to ignore the yawning class divide between Kyle Rittenhouse and his many critics in the media,” Carlson told his views. “Rittenhouse comes from the least privileged sector of our society; during high school he worked as a janitor and a fry cook to help support his family. Last year, he got into college at Arizona State, and he’s very proud of it. In the world Kyle Rittenhouse grew up in, it’s not a given that kids go to college — not even close.”
According to a profile in The New Yorker, Rittenhouse’s parents are separated. His mother Wendy Rittenhouse works as a nurse’s assistant to support her three children. The teen’s father, who lives in Kenosha, has struggled with addiction and has not always employed.
Things were so tough, Rittenhouse and his family reportedly spent time in a homeless shelter. As a boy, Rittenhouse helped to support the family by working multiple jobs, which, according to Carlson, included working as a janitor and fry cook. Notably, the teen was working as a lifeguard back in August 2020. Heavy.com reports:
A profile in the New Yorker reported that Wendy is divorced from Kyle’s father, Mike Rittenhouse, whom she married in 2000. They had three children, including Faith and McKenzie.
Mike was a machine operator who struggled with alcohol and drugs and unemployment and was accused of domestic battery against Wendy, but he denied the charges, which were later dismissed, according to The New Yorker, which said Wendy and her kids lived in a homeless shelter for a time.
According to The New Yorker, Mike is now sober and wants to be more connected to his family, but Wendy continued to struggle financially, even being evicted. She is dyslexic and has had health issues, The New Yorker reported, so Kyle, as a teen, worked jobs to help support the family.
Rittenhouse was acquitted Friday by a jury on all charges against him related to a deadly riot in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year.
Appearing in a teaser clip for a documentary from Carlson, Rittenhouse said after the acquittal that the jury “reached the right verdict.”
“Self-defense is not illegal, and I believe they came to the correct verdict, and I’m glad that everything went well.”
“It’s been a rough journey, but we made it through it,” the 18-year-old said. “We made it through the hard part.”
The special follows the teenager through the last year after he fatally shot two rioters and injured a third while defending himself against attackers during a Black Lives Matter protest that devolved into a riot. The teen was facing life in prison with no chance at parole.
“It’s the stuff that keeps you up at night, like once you do get to sleep, your dreams are about what happened and you’re waking up in a dark cold sweat,” the teenager revealed to Carlson’s crew.
Rittenhouse said he has dreams about the deadly night “every single night.”
“It’s quite scary actually, because the dreams feel so real. And they’re not the same at all, they’re all different. They’re the different scenarios that run through your heard during the day, like, what could have happened,” he detailed.
“I’m alive, but what could have happened, like what if I wasn’t alive, or what if I did let Mr. Rosenbaum steal my gun? It’s those types of dreams … almost every outcome is either me getting seriously injured or hurt or dead. Those are just the dreams I have on a daily basis.”
It was revealed during the trial by Rittenhouse’s defense attorney Mark Richards that the teenager is in therapy for the PTSD he suffers from, stemming from the night of August 25, 2020.
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