'QAnon Shaman' meets fans in Arizona after prison release

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story reported that Jacob Chansley spoke at the Reformed Living Bible Church. The event was in a meeting room that shares RLBC's address, but a church representative said it was in no way affiliated with it.

Over a hundred people gathered at a meeting room in Scottsdale, Arizona, this Sunday to celebrate the homecoming of Jacob Chansley, dubbed the "QAnon Shaman" after he was pictured walking through the U.S. Capitol in a bison-horned headdress on Jan. 6, 2021.

Chansley wasn't wearing the face paint or horns that he's famous for, but instead donned a white suit and American flag-themed tie and signed autographs on mugshots and T-shirts at a table as people lined up to greet him.

“Here I am saying hello, a couple years later, in a much more public way than I ever anticipated, and it’s really surreal, almost like a dream,” Chansley told the crowd, according to AZ Central.

Chansley was sentenced to 41 months in prison in November 2021 after he pleaded guilty to charges related to Jan. 6. He was moved to a halfway house and released last week. Prosecutors say that while he did not commit any violence on Jan. 6, he played an effective role in goading others to breach the Capitol building.

Speaking to the crowd on Sunday, Chansley said that, while he was in prison, he got closer to God than he possibly could have imagined and “felt God's presence on several occasions.”

“We must not sever our kinship based on divisive propaganda, but instead learn to find what we can agree on and rebuild our nation based on those commonly held values,” he said.