Inside Reacher Star Alan Ritchson's Relationship With His Wife Catherine

The following article includes references to suicide and mental health issues.

In the Amazon Prime Video series "Reacher," Alan Ritchson plays a veritable man mountain who is as amusing as he is intimidating; he's powerful enough to deploy an airbag by kicking a car, but so unflappable in life-or-death situations that he's never at a loss for a witty remark. However, while the man who turns on the self-possessed swagger to play Jack Reacher might still resemble the character when the cameras aren't rolling, don't let his hulking physique fool you. "As masculine as he is, he's sensitive; he needs to be needed," Alan's wife, Catherine Ritchson, revealed on "The Road to Wisdom Podcast." In other words, he doesn't share Reacher's desire to be a loner.

Still, marriage hasn't been as easy for Alan and Catherine as, say, Reacher breaking a baseball bat with his bare hands. On Bill Maher's "Club Random" podcast, Alan compared his marriage to a long battle. "I want a marriage; I want my family to be intact. I fight for it. ... We go to war," he said. Luckily for him, he married someone willing to fight the good fight alongside him, and she's no shrinking violet. Of her role in their marriage, Catherine said in her "The Road to Wisdom" interview, "I'm never gonna be a yes man; I'm never going to be a Stepford Wife."

While their journey has been fraught with challenges, it's one Catherine and Alan have spent many years navigating together. There's no shortage of short marriages in Hollywood, but their romance has been going strong since before Alan had any acting credits to his name.

When they first met, Alan Ritchson and Catherine Ritchson were teenagers living in Florida. The ambitious high schoolers were both already pursuing music theater degrees by taking early college courses. They had to earn dance credits, which is how they ended up enrolling in the same ballet class at a local University. "I thought she was a college student, so I was afraid to talk to her. I figured there was no point because she's going to be older than me, but I found out she was doing the exact same thing that I was," Ritchson told The Hollywood Reporter.

Alan also made quite a first impression on Catherine. "I turned to my friend Miriam and I said, 'Who is that?'" she recounted on "The Road to Wisdom." However, she wasn't exactly scribbling Alan's name in her notebooks alongside little hearts. For one thing, she couldn't remember it. "The next week, I saw him again, and I said to Miriam, 'What's his name again?'" she confessed.

Alan told Men's Health he learned that Catherine used to figure skate, and when he finally worked up the courage to talk to her, this knowledge inspired him to use an uninspired pickup line: "So I heard you ice-skate." Luckily, Catherine didn't respond by giving him the cold shoulder, and they started dating.

Catherine Ritchson and Alan Ritchson began doing stage productions in high school, even appearing in "Guys and Dolls" together. Before shows, Catherine ensured that Alan didn't take the stage hungry by giving him cookies to snack on. "Of course I fell in love," he joked in a "Today" interview. Sadly, sweets weren't enough to keep the high school sweethearts together. 

At the time, Alan lived in Niceville, Florida, while Catherine resided on a farm a half-hour drive away. On "The Road to Wisdom," she revealed that one of Alan's reasons for dumping her was the distance. "He thought it was a fling and I didn't, and he ended it at the end of the summer. ... He says it was about the economics. For him as a high schooler, 30 minutes of gas money wasn't practical," she recounted. But Catherine didn't see the problem, explaining that she drove that distance all the time due to how far away from everything her farm was.

Fortunately, Catherine and Alan's love story resumed not long after Alan dropped out of school at Northwest Florida State. He, karmically enough, had to work at a gas station to make ends meet. He told the Wall Street Journal that a customer encouraged him to try modeling, and he was pursuing this line of work when he and Catherine reconnected. "I was at the University of Florida and he was actually modeling down in Miami, and through a mutual friend, we got back in touch," she recalled in her podcast interview. Now they have the perfect Hallmark movie pitch: A model from a small town reconnects with his high school sweetheart in the big city.

While Catherine Ritchson would eventually become a financial analyst, thus adding Alan Ritchson's name to the list of celebrities who married regular people, her former job at Comedy Central is what drew Alan to Hollywood in 2004. On "The Road to Wisdom," she said she interned for the network in college, and Alan decided to join her in Los Angeles. "I think he saw the opportunity there, but, yeah, music was his first love," she revealed. Ritchson even auditioned for "American Idol" in Atlanta in 2003, getting Paula Abdul all hot and bothered by serenading her with "You Are the Sunshine of my Life." It seems Catherine wasn't in the picture at that time, as he assured the judge that he was single.

While "Idol" didn't help Alan launch a music career, Catherine was determined to help her man — who told The Hollywood Reporter he's a big boy band fan — achieve his dream of becoming the next Justin Timberlake. Her idea was to head to the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica and sell copies of a CD Alan had produced himself. They also blasted it on a boombox. "I'm forcing him to do this. I guess I just believed in him that much," she revealed on the podcast. While a few lucky people snagged CDs, the couple's enterprise got shut down when they were informed they needed a permit to be there.

On "Q with Tom Power," Alan Ritchson revealed that he broke into acting through a modeling agent who scored him some auditions. One of his first juicy roles came when he joined the "Smallville" cast in 2005. "I remember when he called me to tell me he got Aquaman, I was at college and jumped up and down screaming," Catherine Ritchson recalled on "The Road to Wisdom." A year after Alan's first of four "Smallville" episodes aired, the couple had another reason to celebrate when they tied the knot.

There were also some big disappointments, such as Alan being told he was too long in the tooth to play Finnick Odair in the 2013 movie "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," per Men's Health. He was offered a smaller role as the District 1 tribute Gloss instead, but because Catherine was pregnant with their first child, he was hesitant to accept the part. Catherine, meanwhile, had no such reservations about the career move and recalled telling Alan, "This is too big of an opportunity. You have to go. It's fine. Women used to have babies on the side of the road.'"

Alan decided to listen to his wife, and fortune smiled on the couple when a shift in the shooting schedule created a two-week break. It allowed him to be present for the birth of his son, Calem, in 2012 — landing him among Hollywood's most gorgeous celebrity dads.

Life imitated adrenaline-charged art for Alan Ritchson when his wife saw a vehicle break-in happen during a night out in Montreal. As the thief was making a run for it with stolen goods, he made the mistake of darting in Alan and Catherine Ritchson's direction. "We lock eyes as he passes, and I was like, 'Oh, no. He's definitely, like, an Acme villain, and I'm going to have to do something about this,'" Alan recalled on "The Tonight Show." Apparently, his wife knew what he was thinking and reminded him, "We're on a date." But it was too late — he was already in full-on "Reacher mode."

Alan temporarily lost the lawbreaker, but a helpful bystander informed him that his quarry had shimmied underneath a van. The chase finally ended when Alan caught the criminal and tossed him into a wall. After that, the thief became the police's problem, and Alan had to face his own form of justice when he reunited with Catherine. "She was very, very mad at me for not just taking her on our date," he told Etalk. "You know, we got there eventually."

As Alan Ritchson's career took off, he found himself working alongside some of Hollywood's hottest female actors, a few of whom found him attractive. "Not everybody that you work with cares that you're married, and there's a lot of friction because some people would rather you not be married," he revealed on the "Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum" podcast. He confessed that these situations even made him question whether he wanted to remain married.

While it's not uncommon for actors to fall for their co-stars, Alan ultimately felt guilty for entertaining such thoughts. He also praised Catherine Ritchson for tolerating the brazen come-ons. "When you have sex icons throwing themselves at you trying to destroy your marriage ... you bet your ass she's damn strong," he said on "Club Random." Catherine was possibly throwing a little shade at these women when she praised Alan's "Reacher" castmate Sonya Cassidy in a 2025 Instagram post. "Sonya is a dream come true for any actor's spouse. ... She has distinct professional boundaries," she wrote.

Some of Alan's "fans" can also be rather unkind. On "The Road to Wisdom," Catherine said of the social media messages she receives from them, "They're like, 'You're not pretty enough to be his wife.'" She brushes the hate off by telling herself that these people probably aren't in a great place if that's what they're doing with their lives.

In January 2022, Alan Ritchson took to Instagram to share the distressing news that Catherine Ritchson and their kids had been involved in a car accident. He assured fans that no one was badly injured, but the first words of his caption were directed at the manufacturer of the truck Catherine had been driving. "Big shoutout to [GMC] for building a truck that could take it on the chin like a champ," he wrote. "You kept my wife and 3 young boys safe and I'm grateful." Alan also concluded his post by gushing over the vehicle, adding, "Good lord the truck didn't budge." 

For his 16th wedding anniversary that same year, Alan shared another automobile-related anecdote with his Instagram followers, but it didn't paint one of the vehicles involved in such a positive light. He admitted that he viewed Catherine's insistence on driving a minivan as one of her few faults, so he decided to get rid of it without her knowledge. He thought she'd be thrilled when he presented her with its replacement: a Tesla Model X. Her response? "Where is my minivan!? ... Go get my van back!" While he can't boast about the "Reacher" fam driving one of his vehicles, at least Elon Musk can count on his hype man Donald Trump to use his presidential platform to promote the Tesla brand.

Alan Ritchson once told Fortress of Solitude, "Reacher doesn't even have a house. He's got a toothbrush." Neither does Alan, although he probably has a lot more personal belongings than his character. "Cat and I recently sold our Florida house and we now live in Airbnbs and hotels while I'm on set," the actor told the Wall Street Journal in 2023. In her "The Road to Wisdom" interview, Catherine Ritchson explained that the purpose of their nomadic lifestyle is to keep the family together, not just because they feel that it's best for their three sons — Calem, Edan, and Amory — but also because it's something Alan needs. "I think that sometimes if we are almost going along in life too well, separated, it hurts him, and he starts to feel useless," she explained.

Catherine further revealed that she began homeschooling their kids during the pandemic. They eventually decided to let the boys start attending school in Florida instead, but Alan's unease with being apart from his family made them decide to resume homeschooling. It has allowed Catherine to take her kids on some pretty incredible field trips, and apparently Alan doesn't mind becoming a student for a day when their lessons take place outside the classroom. "Talk about an epic homeschooling day," Catherine captioned a 2022 Instagram photo of the entire family at Stonehenge.

Catherine Ritchson isn't an action star like her husband, but she definitely has an adventurous side. When Alan Ritchson got open water certified for "Reacher" in 2025, she took scuba classes with him. "I said 'If you get to do something cool like that, Imma do it too!'" she wrote on Instagram, where she can be seen riding a jet ski with Alan, rock climbing with him during a date, and even flying a plane.

Alan seems to enjoy having his professional and family lives intermingled. The Ritchson crew has gone whale-watching with his "Reacher" costars Sonya Cassidy and Johnny Berchtold, and Alan's kids have also joined him at work. However, Catherine regrets bringing their son Edan to the set of Alan's 2017 series "Blood Drive" because he didn't understand what he was seeing. "There were all these prosthetic arms and legs, heads and stuff ... he saw one and he started crying," she recalled on "The Road to Wisdom." On Instagram, Catherine revealed that she became friends with Alan's "Blood Drive" co-star Christina Ochoa and described her as "chosen family."

When Alan can't be with his sons, he makes sure to FaceTime them. In January 2024, Catherine shared a video of him reading them "James and the Giant Peach" on the set of "Reacher" — with fake blood streaming down his face. "Beaten, bloody, freezing, exhausted; he remained dedicated to his family; animated voices and all," she wrote.

Alan Ritchson learned he was bipolar after he attempted suicide and decided to seek help. On the recommendation of a friend, he also did MDMA with Catherine Ritchson, which resulted in him opening up to his wife in a way that he found cathartic. "The moment it hit, I looked at my wife. We had not really seen each other in a long time because I was just missing things around me. I said, 'We are one. We are one,' over and over again,'" he told The Hollywood Reporter. He revealed that he also discussed his suicide ideation with her, recalling, "She's like, 'Please don't do this to us.' I kept saying, 'I won't.'"

Alan fears that living with someone who is bipolar must be hard for Catherine, even telling AP that he would be Satan in a movie inspired by their life. "There'd be hellfire kind of everywhere I go, wake of destruction. It'd be cities burning," he said. In his scenario, Catherine would play the role of a distraught angel asking him, "Why are you doing this to us?"

Alan marveled over how Catherine never gives up on him or their marriage, and he praised her for being level-headed when he's having a bipolar episode or discussing his mental health struggles with her. "I'm like, 'Yeah, I feel like I just want to go in and machine gun everybody.' She's like, 'Okay, let's talk about it,'" he said on "Inside of You."

If you or someone you know needs help with mental health or is struggling or in crisis, contact the relevant resources below:

• The Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.
• Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org.

When Catherine Ritchson decided to give up alcohol for a month, her husband did, too. "I just kind of stumbled into sobriety because of her. Even though neither of us ever had a problem with it," Alan Ritchson wrote on Reddit. What started as a "sober October" became a lifelong commitment for the couple, and Alan doesn't regret his decision to keep avoiding alcohol. On the "Thomas DeLauer Podcast," he shared that he finds it freeing to no longer worry about the calories he used to consume in his favorite sugar-laden cocktails. He also doesn't have to fret over the unpleasant side effects of alcohol (which are probably no fun for someone who hits the gym as much as he does).

As for Catherine, she revealed that she felt pressure from others to resume drinking. She wrote in a 2023 Instagram post, "Quitting drinking was the first time I ever went to bat FOR MYSELF. Going to bat for someone else? Simple. For me? I'd rather die." However, she wouldn't allow herself to be swayed, explaining, "Boundaries are the roots by which we love ourselves, love those we've committed ourselves to, and stay standing through the hurricane of others' blindly destructive and selfish natures." Alan has clearly snagged himself a partner who is as wise as she is supportive and strong.