Jeremy London Reveals Why Defending Gus Walz From Trolls Is ‘Personal’ (VIDEO)

The sight of Tim Walz‘s son Gus tearfully standing up to proclaim “That’s my dad!” as he took the stage on Wednesday night’s (August 21) Democratic National Convention touched the hearts of audiences across the country. However, the scene has also sparked some trolling from certain right-wing personalities on social media that won’t be amplified in this post.

In response to comments such as those, actor Jeremy London offered a tearful message to the digital world describing why protecting the 17-year-old, who has a non-verbal learning disorder, ADHD, and an anxiety disorder from the harm of hateful commentary.

“You guys know that we’ve been raising our grandbaby Kingston. But what I haven’t ever mentioned, because it just simply doesn’t matter in the big picture of things, is that he’s also nonverbal, and he’s autistic, and [there are] challenges to raising him that I didn’t have with my other sons,” London said. “But I wouldn’t trade it for the world. This baby’s my … he’s my life. He’s my world. I’m telling you right now, if anybody says anything mean about Gus, I’m not gonna be nice anymore.”

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Though Gus and Kingston have differing conditions, London’s passion about protecting the child was quite evident, as he added, “I’m proud of my grandbaby, and I know Tim Walz is proud of his son. I don’t know why I felt compelled to need to do this, but it just, I guess it gave me some hope for my grandson, but it also made me realize there’s gonna be a lot of really ugly people out there doing a lot of really ugly things, saying a lot of really nasty things. And they’re about to see a side of me that I don’t even want to come out.”

London then went on to encourage viewers of the viral video to vote to “shift the mood in this country.”

This race just became personal… pic.twitter.com/7H6elcDZgy

— Jeremy London (@SirJeremyLondon) August 22, 2024

Tim and Gwen Walz previously opened up about Gus’ diagnosis in an interview with People in which they explained, “It took time, but what became so immediately clear to us was that Gus’ condition is not a setback — it’s his secret power.” The couple added that their son “is brilliant, hyper-aware of details that many of us pass by, and above all else, he’s an excellent son and brother to his sibling.”