‘Everything Is Gone’: Bert Kreischer Blames Invisible Looters for Rite Aid’s Bankruptcy Troubles
Comedian Bert Kreischer has inspired hit movies, battled Russian gangsters and come weirdly close to fronting one of the worst rock bands in history. Now, he’s using his social media popularity to… investigate imaginary crimes? What are you doing, Bert?
In a recent post, Kreischer filmed himself wandering through a Los Angeles Rite Aid location, bemoaning the drug store’s ominously empty shelves. In what feels like the opening narration of a post-apocalyptic B-movie from the 1980s, Kreischer begins the video by stating: “This is Los Angeles, everything is gone.”
“This looks like it’s been looted,” Kreischer suggested while scanning the tragically barren shelves, once plentiful with valuable deodorant sticks. “I guess thieves just come in and take whatever’s expensive, and just fucking walk out with it. This is crazy. This is unrecognizable.”
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Kreischer then waxed poetically about the value of Rite Aid. “When I moved to Los Angeles, you’d come into Rite Aid, and you’d spend the fucking afternoon looking around.” Which, to be honest, sounds like an objectively awful way to spend an afternoon.
“This is so fucking sad,” the proto-Van Wilder concluded, shaking his head, presumably in disappointment at the current state of humanity.
Of course, had Kreischer used the same device that filmed and uploaded the video to just Google the words “Rite Aid,” he probably would have arrived at the real explanation behind the lack of stock, which in no way involved an army of invisible looters. Rite Aid filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2023, after facing 1,600 lawsuits related to the company’s role in contributing to the opioid crisis — including one filed by the federal government, alleging that “the company ignored red flags when filling suspicious prescriptions for the addictive pain drugs.”
While Rite Aid has emerged from bankruptcy as of this week, and is now a “privately held company,” more than 500 Rite Aid pharmacies closed after they filed for Chapter 11. And the stores that remained open have been plagued with “empty shelves.”
This isn’t all that surprising; companies that file for bankruptcy often find that suppliers “hold back, worrying about receiving payment.”
This isn’t the first time that a celebrity has claimed that empty Rite Aid shelves are the result of thieves, and not Rite Aid’s terrible business practices, but a ton of people have been ruthlessly dunking on Kreischer online, suggesting that this gaffe might explain why it took him eight years to graduate from Florida State.
One user photoshopped the comedian in front of a Sears location — clearly another victim of these same nefarious looters.
If Ryan Reynolds ever gets around to making another Van Wilder movie, perhaps it should be a low-budget indie in which the former party animal aimlessly putters around a drug store.
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