Kyle Rittenhouse Insists He Didn’t Flee Event After Heckling

Kyle Rittenhouse has denied claims that he fled an event at the University of Memphis on Wednesday.

He was invited by the college’s Turning Point USA chapter to speak at the campus. However, the event was met with backlash from a variety of students who objected to Rittenhouse’s presence.

Rittenhouse seemed to abruptly depart the stage after audience members questioned him about comments made by political activist Charlie Kirk, the founder and president of TPUSA, a youth organization that says it aims to “restore traditional American values like patriotism, respect for life, liberty, family, and fiscal responsibility.”

Rittenhouse has rejected the claims that he finished talking before his allotted time on Wednesday.

“The event was scheduled for 30 minutes. I spoke for 30 minutes, and then my security team told the coordinator that we were leaving after the question, and we left. I stayed for the scheduled time,” he told Newsweek in a statement.

Rittenhouse also shared a variety of posts to X (formerly Twitter) about the event.

“No one forced me to leave the stage… The event was scheduled for 30 minutes and I was on stage for 30 minutes,” he wrote in one post.

“What I find hilarious is that everyone is saying I was ‘chased’ out of Memphis, when in reality, we went to this restaurant called Huey’s, grabbed some food, and nobody seemed to care or notice,” he wrote in another.

He also reposted a tweet from Kirk in which the TPUSA president said he’d be asking Tennessee lawmakers to investigate if the University of Memphis colluded with local protesters to “sabotage last night’s TPUSA event.” Rittenhouse added: “It’s ridiculous to see a university censoring speech ‘yes what they did was censorship.'”

In another post on Thursday, Rittenhouse denied claims he was booed off stage Wednesday, writing: “The headlines are wrong again – I wasn’t booed off stage at the University of Memphis last night. The far left’s attempts to intimidate me won’t stop me from speaking with college students and sharing my story.”

One clip of Wednesday’s event shared on X shows the 21-year-old addressing students while a group…