On Wednesday, a man who nicknamed himself “Pro-Life Spider-Man” was arrested for climbing Las Vegas‘ high-tech Sphere.
Local police had responded to reports of “an individual scaling a building near the 200 block of Sands Avenue,” who was later identified as Maison Des Champs. The 24-year old was booked into the Clark County Detention Center and charged with destroying property of another and conspiracy to destroy private property. Des Champs has been detained before, including an arrest following his climb up Las Vegas’ Aria Hotel in 2021 in protest of Covid-19 regulations, and said he climbed the Sphere in an effort to dissuade a woman from allegedly having an upcoming abortion on a post promoting the anti-abortion organization Let Them Live.
Des Champs did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone’s request for comment.
While Des Champs might appear as some sort of vigilante risking his life to fight a woman’s right to abortion, his social media reveals a penchant for promoting content from misogynists Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, and Donald Trump.
In 2022, Des Champs climbed to the top of the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco to raise money for anti-abortion charities, and was also seen scaling the New York Times building to hang a sign that read, “Abortion kills more than 9/11 every week!” Although Des Champs has repeatedly said his antics have been in the name of garnering enough cash to end abortion, his fundraisers have only raised a fraction of his goals.
Last November, Des Champs shared an Instagram clip of Musk declaring there is a population crisis. (The billionaire has previously tried and failed to justify his apparent breeder kink). “People really try to use over population as an argument against ab0rt10n and it is so sad,” Des Champs wrote in the caption. “So go have 12 kids like people did in the good ole’ days!!!!!”
Earlier that month, he posted a graphic video of what appeared to be a fetus and referred to legal abortion as a “holocaust,” protesting that there are “lots of photos of the jews being killed, but these babies get murdered, thrown into a medical incinerators and burned to create electricity before you ever get to see them.”
In a separate Instagram post in August last year, Des Champs seemed to make a bizarre comparison between himself and Trump — posting a headshot of himself next to the four-time indicted former president’s mugshot. Along with a quote from the Book of Psalms, Des Champs said, “Times are about to get tough, but we have to remember to #feargodnotevil”
His stunts have been fawned over by right-wing personality Carlson himself, who invited Des Champs on his Fox show — before his ousting from the network — and praised his “athletic ability” and “bravery.” (Last spring, Carlson traded notes with Musk on their shared impulse to impregnate as many women on Earth as possible, with the Tesla CEO blaming “birth control, abortions, and whatnot” on the impending collapse of civilization.)
Des Champs, who according to his Instagram is an “ambassador” for Turning Point (the right-wing powerhouse run by Charlie Kirk), claims he’s motivated by his mission to convince women to not have abortions, but his fandom for men who have been either accused of sexual harassment or have been found liable for sexual abuse suggests a misguided approach to telling women how to and what to do with their bodies.