Amid the Los Angeles riots in early June 2025, Wyatt Russell became a major topic of conversation on social media. This, after a video of the actor calling out the National Guard went viral. There’s just one problem: it wasn’t Wyatt.
ICYMI, on June 9, a number of social media users shared a video of a man addressing members of the National Guard, imploring them to stand with protestors in wake of the ICE raids. Said man happened to have shoulder-length hair (which Wyatt once sported, though he’s always been blond, and the man appeared to have light brown hair), a similar (ish, from some angles) side profile to the star, and donned a Los Angeles Kings hoodie (and as many know, Wyatt is a major ice hockey fan and former professional player). All those details, and naturally, social media users soon claimed he was Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell’s son.
Granted, not everyone hopped on the bandwagon, and a number of people across platforms fact-checked the accounts claiming the man was Wyatt. “That’s literally not Wyatt Russell,” wrote one X user. “That doesn’t even look like Wyatt,” chimed another — and TBH, while some stills had us thinking maybe it was the actor, upon watching the actual video, we’re in agreement there. X ultimately included a community notes detail pointing out that it likely wasn’t Wyatt. On Instagram, one account also called out Call to Activism for claiming it was Wyatt, writing in a caption, “Facts matter. This is NOT Wyatt Russell. The name of the man who has helped to restore my faith in humanity is Mr. @aaronjfisher89.” Speaking of Aaron Fisher, he spoke to Entertainment Weekly and confirmed that it had been him, but joked that if Wyatt’s name helped spread his message, he was fine with being misidentified.
Wyatt distanced himself from the video
While Wyatt Russell is one of many celebs who don’t use social media, meaning he couldn’t debunk the video claims himself, a spokesperson for the actor cleared things up. “This is indeed NOT Wyatt Russell, and we have been working to try and correct the mis-identification,” they told the Independent.
That Wyatt and his team wanted to distance themselves from the situation isn’t that surprising when taking into account that he’s one of many celebs who aren’t super keen talking about their personal views. Granted, he’s not a recluse, and he has spoken about being raised by his famous parents. In fact, he and Kurt Russell even did a joint interview on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” where they specifically spoke about their similarities. However, it’s precisely those similarities which had us saying, “Aha,” when Wyatt’s team put out its statement. In a 2020 interview with The New York Times, Kurt pointed out that he didn’t think actors should share their commentary on current affairs. “As far as I’m concerned, you should step away from saying anything so that you can still be seen by the audience in any character. There’s no reason entertainers can’t learn just as much as anybody else about a subject, whatever it is. But I think that what’s sad about it is that they lose their status as a court jester,” he said. Kurt went on to clarify the importance of that role, noting, “A court jester is the only one who can walk into the castle and put the king down as long as he doesn’t hit too close to home.”
Of course, it wasn’t Wyatt who said that, so it’s possible his distancing himself from the video was entirely unrelated. However, we definitely wouldn’t rule out the possibility of there being a link here.
