Far-right influencer Nick Fuentes accused of pepper spraying woman on his doorstep

BERWYN, Ill. (AP) — Far-right influencer Nick Fuentes is due in court later this month after a woman accused him of pepper-spraying her when she showed up at his suburban Chicago home following his “Your body, my choice” post on X.

According to court documents, the 57-year-old woman approached Fuentes’ home in Berwyn on Nov. 10, shortly after his address was leaked following his post, the Chicago Tribune reported. Berwyn is a Chicago suburb of about 54,000 people.

The woman told the newspaper in a Nov. 15 interview that her friends encouraged her to go to Fuentes’ home to see if rumors were true that he had been receiving prank deliveries after his post on X. She said she made a video of herself on the sidewalk in front of Fuentes’ home. Another woman pulled up in her car and told her to ring the doorbell.

She alleged that Fuentes opened the door before she could ring the bell, pepper-sprayed her, screamed an expletive and took her phone.

Fuentes, 26, faces a battery charge in connection with the incident, the newspaper reported. He is due to appear in court on Dec. 19. He has posted mugshots of himself on his X account along with “Free me (racial slur).”

He didn’t immediately respond to a message The Associated Press sent him Saturday through X. Attempts to reach his attorney, Eduardo Cervantes, were unsuccessful.

Fuentes, a Holocaust-denying white supremacist, is part of an emboldened fringe of right-wing “manosphere” influencers who have seized on Republican Donald Trump’s presidential victory to amplify misogynistic derision and threats online.

Many of them have appropriated the “my body, my choice” abortion rights slogan, changing it to “your body, my choice.” The twist on the wording has been largely attributed to Fuentes’ Nov. 5 X post: “Your body, my choice. Forever.”