Acquitted killer Kyle Rittenhouse said he was hospitalized after a venomous spider bite on Wednesday.
The right-wing darling, who was acquitted of murdering two people and shooting another with an AR-15-style rifle during a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest when he was 17, shared photos of himself in the hospital and where the apparent spider bite was located on his leg.
“The communists couldn’t take me out and i’ll be damned if I let a brown recluse take me out,” Rittenhouse, 23, said in the post shared on X.
“Disappointed I’m not Spider-Man now...” he added in a follow-up post.
Rittenhouse did not initially specify whether he killed the spider after being bitten.
In response to the Daily Beast’s story, Rittenhouse wrote on X: “Good news: the spider is nolonger with us. But I am. You’re welcome.”
Brown recluse bites are not commonly fatal in adults but can be serious and require immediate medical attention, according to the Bayne-Jones Army Community Hospital.
Symptoms can include intense pain, redness, blistering, and skin necrosis, or tissue death.
Rittenhouse first entered the spotlight after he traveled to an organized protest over the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, with an AR-15 rifle to defend local businesses.
The then-17-year-old killed two men and injured a third, but was acquitted on all charges after he argued that he had acted in self-defense.
Since then, he has used his clout among American right-wingers to cultivate a following based on the protection of Second Amendment rights.
In January, after federal immigration agents in Minneapolis shot and killed 37-year-old VA ICU nurse Alex Pretti, who was carrying a firearm before he was disarmed, Rittenhouse urged gun owners to “carry everywhere.”
Rittenhouse then clarified his stance on the incident, writing that “Communists are gay. And anti-2A people are gay. Biden’s failed open borders policies created this ENTIRE mess.”
After a self-imposed social media hiatus last year, Rittenhouse announced in December that he had gotten married to a fellow firearm enthusiast, Bella Nelson Rittenhouse.
