The Alec Baldwin terror timeline

A deep dive where we cover every controversy including his ugly divorce, the infamous voicemail to his daughter, endless paparazzi assaults, repeated gay bashing, racism, and rage addiction

We often think that the internet is an all-knowing oracle. It seems self-evident that the sum total of human knowledge is available at the click of a button or through a simple google search. As someone who often digs through archives and collects old periodicals, I know that this is a myth. The internet is actually a memory hole. Most stories over five years old are missing photos and links. Or they are inaccessible because of a website redesign. Lots of other material is hidden by the algorithm or otherwise lost to time.

I started looking for a timeline of all the wild controversies that Alec Baldwin has gotten himself in over the years. This thought crossed my mind as I was reading a 2008 profile of Baldwin that was written in The New Yorker magazine. In the profile, Baldwin alleged that his ex-wife, Kim Basinger, was alienating their daughter Ireland from him. Baldwin invoked the term “parental alienation.” My ears perked up because just the day before I had read a very interesting long form article published by ProPublica. The piece explained how parental alienation is used to paint people as mentally ill in parental custody battles. It shocked me to learn that many courts accept parental alienation and higher courts in some states have affirmed that parental alienation is a form of child endangerment. ProPublica describes the theory as: “(...) a disputed psychological theory in which one parent is accused of brainwashing a child to turn them against the other parent.”

When I poked around in google to find a timeline of all of Alec Baldwin’s bad behavior, all I could find were garbage listicles from websites like She Knows and Nicki Swift. Content farms. So, I decided to take a break from the rabbit hole I was languishing in and dig into the archives as best as I could to assemble a real dossier on the Massapequa madman. I had no idea that it would take as long as it did or that I would find so much dirt. In fact, I know I missed a lot. There were references to fights Baldwin got into in the 1980s and 1990s that I didn’t find sources for so I left them off the list. Let me know if you find any I missed. Leave a comment with the source and I will add it to the pile.

One of my main motivations for doing this list was because of Baldwin’s claims about parental alienation. I think these sorts of made up psychiatric “syndromes” are very dangerous. What I found about Baldwin’s accusations made me glad I undertook this exercise. It was even worse that I suspected.

The date of each controversy has an embedded link if you’d like to read more about one of Alec’s tantrums. If there are multiple sources, I have added additional links in the description where appropriate.

1/11/91 Baldwin got a zoning clearance to put a second story on his home in Amagansett in Long Island. His neighbors weren’t happy and appealed the zoning board’s ruling. I’m exhausted just thinking about a dust up with a zoning board.

2/91 Premiere magazine chronicled the discord on the set of The Marrying Man, the film where Baldwin and Kim Basinger met. The making of the film was a huge turning point in Baldwin’s life. He met his future ex-wife Basinger, and he made the first huge bomb in his career as a leading man. Baldwin and the studio, Disney, trashed each other in the press. In a lot of ways his career as a leading man in films never recovered.

The article starts with an anecdote of Alec freaking out because his phone wasn’t working on set. A Disney exec was using a cell phone nearby. Baldwin grabbed the phone and chucked it on the ground and stormed off. Remember, this was in 1991 so it wasn’t like cellphones were small or cheap back then. Alec also kicked over a case full of camera lenses. The studio was contemplating legal action based on the damage to property and delays.

The stories about Baldwin and Basinger are almost unbelievable. Basinger wanted to travel to Brazil to consult a psychic, for example. The studio told her she would have to pay the $85,000 a day it would cost to delay the filming. She and Baldwin, who by this time had moved in together, became unmanageable. Baldwin, in a tantrum, threw a chair and almost hit a crew member. Baldwin also punched his trailer, creating a dent the size of “a breadbox.” The production was such a stressful clusterfuck, by the end of filming, the director came down with a 105-degree fever and took weeks to recover.

5/14/91 Baldwin blasts Disney for The Marrying Man, saying the film looked “cheap” because the studio was cheap. Baldwin then trashed studio exec Jeffrey Katzenberg, calling him “the eighth dwarf - Greedy.” I’m sure Alec never ended up regretting trashing one of the most powerful studios and executives in the biz. Katzenberg responded by saying Baldwin and his then-wife Kim Basinger were irresponsible. This was a polite reference to the actor’s reported bad behavior on the set of The Marrying Man, which was a huge bomb.

5/17/91 Not only does Baldwin blast Jeffrey Katzenberg, the head of Disney, in the full text of his interview in Entertainment Weekly, but he also trashed Pulitzer-prize-winning writer Neil Simon as being “as deep as a bottle cap.” Baldwin talks at length about how Disney “strip-mined the shit” out of their legacy as a studio. Baldwin also said this would be the last interview he gives. Baldwin is nothing if not consistent in stepping on the same rake repeatedly.

Baldwin also had further words about Katzenberg, calling the power broker a “short, bald, uppity, greedy, megalomaniac.” Baldwin admitted he was so frustrated on the set of The Marrying Man that he punched holes in the walls. Baldwin went on to compare the alleged misinformation campaign waged by Disney in the wake of the film to “Hitler’s big lie.” I’m sure Jeffrey Katzenberg wasn’t offended by that comparison.

9/15/91 Baldwin is dropped from Patriot Games after his diss of Disney exec Jeffrey Katzenberg. Baldwin would never reprise his role in the Tom Clancy series.

6/3/92 Baldwin apologizes for calling the driver of a horse-drawn carriage a gay slur the week before. Baldwin hurled the invective at the man during a city council meeting about whether to allow carriages in central park. Baldwin objected on the basis of animal rights.

9/7/92 Baldwin exploded after asking for a pair of tickets to be left for a friend of his at his Broadway performance of A Streetcar Named Desire. Tickets were sold out, and when Baldwin found out after the show, he freaked and trashed his dressing room. 

2/94 A profile of Alec starts on page 70 of the February 1994 Esquire. Luckily, it was available on archive.org. The piece detailed drama on the set of The Marrying Man, the film where Baldwin met Basinger, and they fell in love. The film, in a grim foreshadowing, was a colossal flop and PR nightmare. The article recounts leaks from the studio during the filming about Baldwin’s tantrums. Baldwin smashed cellular phones, walls, and a director’s chair.

The film was a major speed bump for Baldwin and Basinger’s careers. The author said that Baldwin developed a pariah complex after the film. I think he developed it earlier in life, but it’s moot after so many years. The article also recounts Basinger’s loss in the Boxing Helena lawsuit which I also delve into in the section recounting Baldwin’s book on his divorce from Basinger. Baldwin described the lawsuit in terms of a rape by jurisprudence which is obviously tasteless but to me informs how Baldwin views himself as the ultimate victim. I also marvel because if he thought that then, in 1994, it’s easy to see how things escalated when he went through one of the most bitter divorce and custody battles years later after his separation from Basinger.

The profile is a fun and enlightening read. It has a lot in common with a 2008 profile in The New Yorker. It’s obvious that Baldwin wanted to be macho for his interviewer and at the end of this Esquire piece, Baldwin and the writer go skydiving.

3/1/94 Baldwin trashes New York senator Al D’Amato calling him “the bozo pool attendant from Island Park” and wishing that D’Amato would get in a serious ski accident with a large tree. Baldwin’s ugly quote became a tabloid bonanza when D’Amato did get into a ski accident in Park City, breaking his shoulder in three places. 

10/27/95 Baldwin hit a cameraman who was recording Baldwin’s wife and child. Alan Zanger was the photographer and said Baldwin approached him and began arguing with him and then punched him in the nose. Photographer assault tally: 1

1/31/96 Baldwin and William Addeo, a Hampton local, were embroiled in a feud that took place in the letters to the editor section of the East Hampton Star newspaper. Addeo labeled Baldwin as one of Hollywood’s ten biggest perverts and challenged Baldwin to a charity boxing match. 

3/26/96 Baldwin is acquitted of battery in a trial where he was accused of hitting photographer Alan Zanger. This article was interesting to me, especially after spending a good deal of time looking into the trial of Genevieve Sabourin, a woman Baldwin accused of stalking him. Sabourin was convicted of stalking Baldwin in 2013.

What tied the two cases together in my mind was Baldwin’s seeming willingness to embellish facts in a courtroom. In the trial involving the photographer Zanger, there was a videotape of Baldwin spraying shaving cream on the paparazzi’s car window, but there wasn’t a tape of Baldwin hitting the guy. Baldwin called Zanger a “stalkerazzi.” There was audio of Baldwin calling the cops after allegedly hitting Zanger. Baldwin told the police he was afraid his child was going to be kidnapped. There was also a taped interview of Baldwin played at trial, where he appeared to admit to hitting Zanger, but he claimed it was in self-defense. 

Baldwin was later was found liable in a civil trial and had to pay Zanger $4,500, a pittance, but he used his daughter as a shield and got away with it. And he again labeled this inconvenient person a stalker.  

11/25/96 Baldwin, in a feature in W magazine, said the blame shouldn’t be placed on actors when a film bombs but on executives who make all the decisions. Baldwin might have been touchy because he had just been in a string of stinkers with his wife Kim Basinger, including The Marrying Man and The Getaway. 

2/9/97 Baldwin writes a series of angry letters in the East Hampton Star. A New York Times article mentioned that there was speculation that someone else was writing the letters on behalf of Baldwin. Baldwin had been complaining in the letters section about a sanitation worker, a local conservative man, and the town board. Baldwin weighed in on composting and recycling policies and was so wonky and specific that a local publicist believed it was impossible that Baldwin knew the local issues at such a granular level.

The article also mentioned an earlier controversy that Baldwin had gotten into in the Hamptons. I could have easily written a 10,000-word piece about just the dust ups Baldwin has gotten into in the Hamptons. It’s really exhausting just looking into it, but his 1990 zoning dispute is something I have read about in many sources. Baldwin had been involved in a lengthy dispute involving the local Town Zoning Board of Appeals about a chimney Baldwin built that his neighbor complained about. Baldwin apparently built the chimney too close to the property line and needed to get a variance. I cannot believe that I am even writing this, but Alec Baldwin’s pettiness is bottomless.

Baldwin and his associates in the Hamptons charged that there was a conservative conspiracy attacking Baldwin and insults and accusations flew back and forth. Not quite the “vast right-wing conspiracy” that Hillary Clinton alleged was after Bill, but I guess we all have to start somewhere. 

1/9/98 Baldwin appears on the Montel Williams show as part of an advocacy group called Standing for Truth About Radiation, or STAR. As chronicled in an article in MIT Press and a book by Robert Crease, Baldwin is the leading celebrity spokesperson for STAR which was protesting a non-existent threat of radiation poisoning from the Nobel Prize–winning Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Baldwin and his group whipped up a hysteria about a small leak of radiation from a storage pool, not a dangerous reactor leak, and spoke on programs like Montel Williams’s show about sky high cancer rates and being denied access to the lab. “The rates of cancer are 200 to 300 times the national average in this area on Long Island,” Baldwin said which was a figure he pulled from the air. The article is an interesting read, and the author uses this incident as a way of foreshadowing current trends of science disinformation campaigns.

12/15/98 On Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Baldwin makes inflammatory comments about the current impeachment proceedings against President Clinton. Baldwin suggests that Americans should stone to death Rep. Henry Hyde, one of the congressmen involved in the impeachment proceedings, as well as Hyde’s family:

“We would stone Henry Hyde to death and we would go to their homes and we’d kill their wives and their children.”

7/15/99 Columnist Andrea Peyser trashes Baldwin for trying to use his fame to get out of a $40 parking ticket his wife Kim Basinger got. In the column she comes up with many great digs at Baldwin’s expense like labeling him a “half-wit, double-width actor.”

The parking ticket was issued in the Hamptons, the wealthy community outside NYC, where police and locals were scandalized by Baldwin’s boorish behavior. Peyser also mentioned Baldwin’s recent tirade against Rep. Hyde where he suggested the congressman and his family should be stoned to death. I’m starting to think this Baldwin guy is a real jerk.

9/19/00 Kim Basinger is quoted in a German magazine saying that she and Alec would leave the U.S. if George W. Bush was elected president. When Bush won, Baldwin was inundated by emails and posts to his website, so he said Kim was misquoted. Alrighty, then.

1/18/01 Shortly after Kim Basinger’s split from Baldwin, Basinger’s father spoke to the press and talked about how explosive Baldwin’s anger was:

“Don Basinger also says Baldwin has a horrendous temper that he too often unleashed on Kim – even in front of their 5-year-old daughter, Ireland.”

Don also talked about how Baldwin had been exploding on Basinger in public. Kim had been patient with Alec, but eventually saw the writing on the wall after counseling sessions didn’t work. It is interesting getting insight into Kim’s side of the breakup even though it isn’t firsthand, because so much of what is out there is from Alec. This is obviously very intentional on Basinger’s part, as she has avoided sullying herself like Baldwin has.

4/27/01 Alec and his brother Billy attended a Knicks game and ended up in an altercation with a fan who heckled Alec about his recent divorce. Alec, Billy, and the heckler got into a shoving match when Alec confronted the man after the game and tried to sic security on the heckler.

3/9/02 At a luncheon featuring Hillary Clinton, Baldwin compared the September 11th attacks to the results of the 2000 election. As we will see in the future, Baldwin loves comparing things to 9/11 and especially when the comparisons are totally nonsensical. Baldwin’s comment came in a question to Clinton that elicited confused laughs and resulted in a response from Hillary that didn’t acknowledge his strange comparison.

“‘Senator, I want to ask you a question about the other catastrophic event that happened in this country before 9/11 – which was the election of 2000,’ Baldwin said to laughter from some and raised eyebrows from others in the audience.”

(...)

“‘I know that’s a harsh thing to say, perhaps, but I believe that what happened in 2000 did as much damage to the pillars of democracy as terrorists did to the pillars of commerce in New York City,’ Baldwin said to applause from the audience in Tallahassee.”

Columnist Andrea Peyser, who loved using the nickname “the Bloviator” for Baldwin, couldn’t help but pile on.

6/22/04 I’m including this one because it’s entertaining even though it’s not totally on topic. A woman named Dessarae Bradford is mentioned in several early internet websites as being a gadfly and celeb stalker. She wrote a self-published book called I FU*KED ALEC BALDWIN IN HIS A*S where she claims to have had a sexual encounter with Baldwin in 2002.

7/29/04 Baldwin insulted 90% of America.

“The vast wasteland between New York and Los Angeles is flyover country, not leadership America.”

As someone from Alaska, I am a little hurt to not even make the grade as a wasteland.

3/30/05 Baldwin is on a panel “portraying himself as an expert on the Nuremberg trials” where he makes a bunch of non sequitur comments. The person who watched the panel mentioned that there were a bunch of legitimate experts on the trials who were in the audience who fielded the questions that were directed at blowhard Baldwin for whatever reason.

4/26/06 Jan Maxwell, a co-star of Baldwin’s, left the production of the play Entertaining Mr. Sloane. She alleged that Baldwin threw objects because the air conditioner wasn’t working, punched a hole in a wall and was an ass behind the scenes. Maxwell said she feared for her safety and who could blame her?

5/3/06 Kim Basinger’s lawyer filed a motion in their ugly custody case asking the judge to declare Baldwin as a vexatious litigant. This is a classification of litigant who files pleadings designed to harass or otherwise waste the time and resources of a counterparty. Basinger’s lawyer wanted the court to put a stop to the flurry of filings by Baldwin and require Baldwin and his attorneys to request permission from the court before filing a pleading.

6/13/06 I’m so glad I unearthed this story because there were a few references I saw about it in other pieces. Baldwin got into, prepare yourselves, a feud on the set of a movie with the legendary costume designer Patricia Fields. The film was The Girls’ Guide to Hunting & Fishing, co-starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. Baldwin referred to Fields as “a fruit-salad head” and a “wack job, 24-7.”

Baldwin didn’t want to have Fields “dictate” the wardrobe in the film despite Fields being responsible for the fashion in shows like Sex and the City.

6/13/06 In Michael Starr’s column in the Post, Starr reports Baldwin got into a shouting match with Sean Hannity when Baldwin was trying out for a radio gig. Also, a caller on a show pissed Baldwin off when he asked about Baldwin’s ex-wife, Kim Basinger.

6/14/06 Photographer Anthony Goodrich said Alec “stiff-armed” him as Baldwin was heading into celeb hotspot Koi. A place like Koi is well-known as a paparazzi zone where stars show up to be seen and so Baldwin’s alleged assault is completely uncalled for. Not that it’s ever ok to punch someone. Goodrich filed a battery complaint after he said that Baldwin pushed his camera into his face, causing abrasions on his nose and chipping his tooth. TMZ ran photos of the injuries. Photographer assault tally: 2

8/7/06 In a Huffington Post blog about the 2000 election Baldwin referred to Gore’s defeat as a “gang rape.” He seems to love comparing everything to rape.

“Gore, who limped off of the American political stage after the 2000 election after being gang raped by Dick Cheney, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and James Baker…”

9/18/06 Baldwin refers to attorney Judy Bogen as a “300-pound homunculus.” Bogen was the attorney representing Kim Basinger in a custody dispute. What a charmer. Just to reinforce why this is extra shitty once again: Baldwin accuses Basinger of having parental alienation syndrome. This means he thinks Basinger is brainwashing their daughter Ireland by speaking negatively about Baldwin. This smacks of projection but take in this entire deep dive and you tell me what conclusion you reach.

9/19/06 Baldwin did an interview with GQ where he made some absolutely batshit crazy statements about Tom Cruise and Scientology. Baldwin has long been a defender of Cruise and his destructive cult. It was still surprising that he used the sort of inflammatory rhetoric he did. It comes off as disgusting and completely misses the point of the problems with Scientology.

“All I know is I don’t see people who are disciples of Tom’s faith driving planes into the World Trade Center. When Scientologists start crashing planes into the Pentagon, then I think we should sit Tom down and have a grand jury talk to him. In the meantime, let’s just leave him alone.”

There are so many things that are wrong with this quote. It’s screwed up to think that we should have to wait until a criminal organization blows up buildings to look into regulating their abuses. 

10/11/06 Baldwin generates controversy after he tried to bully his way past a police line. Major league pitcher Cory Lidle’s plane had just crashed in NYC. Baldwin was apparently perturbed at being inconvenienced by the tragedy.

10/11/06 Baldwin appears on Howard Stern and reveals that he never uses condoms. This explains so much. There are several greasy appearances on Stern and hours of audio that could be combed through.

10/13/06 In a follow-up story to the controversy surrounding Baldwin trying to push past the police line set up after a plane crash in NYC, Gawker reported that Baldwin’s publicist tried to spin the event and a subsequent incident that reported Baldwin was a jerk to a hostess at a restaurant.

Baldwin was quoted as saying to the woman, “I asked you a question in English and I would like an answer in English. Do you have a working phone in that room?... That is outrageous. That is totally unacceptable.” Baldwin being such a boob to this woman because she appeared to be a foreigner is especially rich in retrospect, given his wife Hilaria’s long-term subterfuge about her own ethnicity where she has pretended to be a non-native English speaker.

11/3/06 It’s interesting reading old Gawker stuff but also frustrating because there are a lot of links to other material that are dead. It seems like there was a ton of excellent material, for example, on the Gawker blog Defamer, but that site is gone from the internet, and I can’t retrieve it even on the Wayback Machine. Anyway, this article talks about Baldwin’s beef with the producers of a documentary about Arnold Schwarzenegger with narration by Baldwin. Baldwin was threatening to trash the film in the press if the producers didn’t cut material about Arnold’s father’s Nazi ties. I’m not sure why Baldwin cared about this, but it’s mentioned in the piece that it might be about money.

12/9/06 At first, I thought this was another story I had already covered, which is insane because there are so many similar instances of Baldwin assaulting people on the street. This is a Gawker feature where readers submitted celeb sightings and Baldwin was seen “bitch slapping some dude in the middle of West 96th Street. The guy had walked in front of Baldwin’s car or something. Baldwin got out, slapped him and called him a cocksucker.”

There were actually two reports sent into the Gawker Stalker on this incident, so it seems very legit.

1/14/07 Baldwin’s one and only film as a director was released (more like it escaped) onto the obscure movie channel Starz after the film had a bizarre journey. The film was in the can for five years before finally seeing the light of day after the film’s investors were investigated for bank fraud. The movie was originally titled The Devil and Daniel Webster but was released as Shortcut to Happiness and starred Jennifer Love Hewitt, Anthony Hopkins, and Baldwin.

4/22/2007 Baldwin’s infamous voicemail to his 11-year-old daughter Ireland is leaked to TMZ. Baldwin called Ireland a “thoughtless little pig.” The voicemail is especially damning in light of Baldwin subsequently becoming involved in advocacy for the disputed parental alienation syndrome. The theory posits that one parent can brainwash a child to hate the other parent. It is a common allegation in high conflict divorces.

Supporters of the theory say that parents shouldn’t talk poorly about their ex-partners. It would appear that Baldwin is at a minimum a hypocrite in trying to paint Basinger as someone who has this alleged syndrome which is not recognized by the DSM but is recognized in some state courts. Baldwin calls Basinger a “thoughtless pain in the ass who doesn’t care about what you do” in his voicemail.

The long form ProPublica article that was just released earlier this month on parental alienation is well-worth reading. It examines a custody case where an allegation of parental alienation against a mother may have allowed a father to gain custody of his son. This is despite the father being reported for sexually abusing his son repeatedly. 

4/22/07 Baldwin’s book on divorce, tentatively titled Life After Divorce, is announced. This is released eventually as A Promise to Ourselves. I’m noticing that the date I have for the release of the voicemail is off or it was a follow-up story. I believe the voicemail was actually released around April 11. The article mentioned Baldwin has been “temporarily forbidden” from seeing his daughter.

4/23/07 Basinger hired 24-hour security for her daughter in the wake of Baldwin’s voicemail scandal. Many other articles from this period point out that Kim Basinger still faced a “multi-count contempt charge for blocking Baldwin’s visitation rights and forbidding him from speaking with Ireland.” This was obviously a leak from Baldwin’s camp to make Basinger look bad. 

The kicker for me, though, is that in Baldwin’s slog of a book A Promise to Ourselves which came out a year later, Baldwin makes a huge deal out of dropping the contempt charges before the leak of the voicemail. Which is it, Alec? Did you drop the charges or not? Did you order the code red or not? You’re goddamned right, he did. Baldwin made himself look like the good guy in his book, while in real life he used the contempt charge to fight back against the leak of the voicemail. What an ass. 

Just to be sure I was remembering Baldwin’s shitty book correctly, I went back and double-checked. I don’t want to stoop to Baldwin’s level and defame him, even if he’s an insufferable asshole. On pages 176-177 Baldwin recounts dropping the contempt charges which arose out of an incident where Ireland and Kim weren’t home when Alec went to pick up Ireland on a Friday. On page 180, Baldwin says, “I stood outside a restaurant on West Sixty-Fifth Street and thought about how I had dropped the contempt charge and how I had tried to improve the situation by offering real compromise.” This passage is where Alec is reacting to the news that the voicemail was leaked to TMZ. I rest my case.

4/24/07 A “pal of Baldwin’s” fired back at Kim Basinger, saying she had her own issues. The “friend” of Baldwin, totally not Baldwin himself or his PR flack, just happened to bring up almost word-for-word the same things that Baldwin said about Kim in his book. Baldwin’s imaginary friend said Kim’s only friends are people on her payroll. She’s jealous of Alec. She’s crazy. Roger, over and out chief.

4/25/07 This Gawker Stalker edition of Baldwin’s visit to Yale is spicy. It’s filed under the tag “sexual predator” on the website. There’s a woman who writes about her encounter with Baldwin where she says he hit on her and got her number. She was a 20-year-old student, and he was around 50. There’s also another account of Baldwin leaving an event with another student in a tight dress and I’m not sure if they’re the same woman. Jeepers creepers.

4/27/07 Baldwin dumped his showbiz reps CAA, and the rumor is that it might be connected to a video that was posted to Funnyordie.com which lampooned Baldwin’s infamous voicemail to his daughter. The humor website is run by CAA clients including Adam McKay and Will Ferrell. A source told Page Six that Baldwin asked CAA to remove the video, which showed popular cartoon character Dora the Explorer listening to the angry voicemail. When the video didn’t come down, Baldwin blew his stack.

4/27/07 Baldwin went on The View to address his infamous voicemail to his 11-year-old daughter and to stump for parental alienation syndrome being the cause. It’s weird, isn’t it? It’s never Alec’s fault.

6/27/07 We can file this one under Creepy Alec. Another Gawker Stalker item that blows up Alec’s spot. A reader recounted seeing Baldwin “frantically chasing” after a woman near Union Square. The reader seemed to think Alec might be desperate for a date because Baldwin didn’t appear to know the brunette he was pursuing. It seemed like he might have been trying to get her number.

11/6/07 Baldwin calls into a local NYC radio show to complain about the Upper West Side being the “one of the dirtiest neighborhoods” in the city, which could be interpreted as having racial overtones.

12/4/07 Alec is angry about the WGA strike, calling it “this motherfucking, motherfucking, motherfucking strike” in his inimitable style. Baldwin’s proposed strategy to end the strike? Shame producers. 

“I want the WGA to set up a website and on that website we can all post stories about every no-talent, idiotic, amoral producer and executive we have ever dealt with.”

Ok, champ.

1/31/08 Baldwin gets involved in a petty squabble over columns in a small paper in the Hamptons. Gawker points out that Baldwin has an ax to grind with the editor of the paper because of political differences.

6/2/08 This item is about Baldwin once again trashing his ex-wife, Kim Basinger. There is an interesting sidelight that makes this entry extra-juicy. Baldwin’s quote about his ex is almost an exact copy of a quote he used to describe another of his sworn enemies, Harvey Levin of TMZ.

“My ex-wife reaches an almost sexual level of satisfaction when she’s in a room full of high-priced lawyers.”

7/30/08 A film called What Just Happened? debuted, and it had a doozy of a scene about Alec Baldwin. The film is based on a series of real-life stories about showbiz by producer Art Linson. In one scene that was reproduced in the movie, Bruce Willis portrays an incident when Alec Baldwin showed up at the set of The Edge with a giant beard. In the real-life incident, Baldwin’s beard created a production crisis. Weird how it seems like every movie this Baldwin guy makes, he has problems. I guess we’ll never know why. I unearthed the clip of the scene where Bruce plays Alec. Check it out to get a sense of how Alec is on set. Also, Bobby DeNiro plays the role of the producer in the scene. 

I also read the excerpt of Linson’s book about the beard incident with Baldwin and it was an interesting read. Baldwin shows up on set overweight and looking haggard with the “Grizzly Adams” beard. Baldwin was supposed to be the lothario in the movie. He’s supposed to look more attractive and younger than Anthony Hopkins. The producers see this bedraggled, husky dude and get worried. Then Baldwin freaked out when they asked him about nixing the beard. Baldwin starts kicking shit in the wardrobe trailer. The women who are there to fit him run out of the room.

In the end, Alec’s agent had to get involved to avoid Alec getting sued and Alec shaved his beard. The punchline to the anecdote is later, after the movie shoot, Linson asked a friend of Alec’s why he thought Alec didn’t want to shave his beard. The pal told Linson he thought it was because Alec was embarrassed because he was overweight and didn’t like how his double chins looked. That’s Alec in a nutshell.

9/6/08 Baldwin picked a fight with Greg Garcia, the creator of My Name is Earl, and accused Garcia of being a Scientologist. Baldwin was involved in several rolling feuds. He was also blasting John McCain and Sarah Palin and bitching about NBC not doing enough PR for 30 Rock and in the process, Baldwin trashed other NBC shows My Name is Earl and Scrubs. Baldwin’s beef with Scientology here seems especially selective given that he seems to have no issue with Tom Cruise’s participation. Garcia for his part denied being a Scientologist.

It should be noted that Tom Cruise is one of the highest-ranking members of the cult and Cruise has indentured servants courtesy of the Sea Org and could be guilty of human trafficking among other offenses. So there’s that distinction.

9/8/08 A lengthy New Yorker profile portrays Baldwin as single, living alone, in the aftermath of the Ireland voicemail. There are great quotes from Billy Baldwin and Lorne Michaels. It’s a wistful piece. Alec at a crossroads vibe. It has a bit about a screenplay Alec wrote about a western that he wanted to make with his brothers. Seems ironic, given what happened with Rust.

There’s an interesting section on the Baldwin family life. Alec’s father, also named Alexander Baldwin, was a high school teacher and coach. Really interesting biographical information in the piece about Alec’s early acting career and college life. Father’s death in 1983. There’s a great quote from Billy, “Alec has a habit of grenade launching.”

9/17/08 In a New York Daily News piece, Baldwin attacks Harvey Levin, saying Levin seemed to derive a perverse pleasure from messing with his life. The Gawker piece points out that Baldwin has tried to blame the ugly voicemail he left for his daughter on the media, his ex-wife, the court system and anyone or anything but himself. Here’s his quote on Levin:

Levin “seemed to be that breed of tabloid creature that realized an almost sexual level of pleasure from ruining other people’s lives.” 

9/23/2008 Baldwin released his book A Promise to Ourselves: A Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce. He wrote it in the wake of the controversy of the voicemail to his daughter Ireland being leaked to TMZ. It explores divorce, family law, and fatherhood. As I mentioned in the intro, I was interested in what Baldwin had to say about parental alienation and how he would rationalize his actions in the messy separation with Kim Basinger and the toxic overspill that affected his daughter. I borrowed the book from archive.org and plowed through it. 

The opening pages of the book proper begin with an angry diatribe about how Baldwin couldn’t get enough of talking about “the subject of divorce’s iniquities.” Baldwin then talks about how at the beginning of his divorce, he would meet men who told him he would have to write off his marriage and child and move on to remarry. He didn’t want to believe them, but after his situation, he now understands how divorce lawyers can destroy a father’s bond with his children. I imagine Ireland reading this and wonder how Alec could write this, knowing how she might read it. God help Alec if his marriage with Hilaria / Hillary goes tits up. 

Chapter 1, Even the Deepest Feelings, Baldwin talks about how Kim lost a lawsuit for pulling out of a film called Boxing Helena and subsequently was ordered to pay $9 million to the producers and had to declare bankruptcy.

Chapter 2, Let the Games Begin, is about Baldwin hiring attorneys and navigating the beginning of the process. It is obvious that Baldwin was a pain in the ass as a client. His account is obviously self-serving, and I’m sure leaves out the sort of details that would be even more damning, but he admits he didn’t follow his lawyer’s advice and he quickly fired the first set of attorneys. Baldwin recommends mediation and talks about how terrible and money hungry attorneys are in the divorce game. Reading this is frustrating in that I agree with the basic premise of a lot of the things that Baldwin is saying, but he is such a pompous boob that it makes me feel like maybe attorneys aren’t so bad.

Chapter 3, Olives and Cheese, is a reflection on Alec’s upbringing and his parents, but especially his high school teacher father. Baldwin loves his daughter and the passages in this part of the book about watching her grow up are, for me, the most compelling by far. That is the thing that I find so vexing about Baldwin: he’s not a total piece of shit. There are a lot of things about him that are admirable like his acting chops and his love for his children. But he is so utterly self-involved that I cannot help but think the only reason he is so invested in his kids is because he is so invested in himself.

Chapter 4, Are You Done Yet, begins with Baldwin describing his second attorney, Dennis Wasser. I can tell right away Baldwin hates Wasser and the other people in his office. Baldwin describes a female associate in Wasser’s office as “arid.”

Baldwin then describes in detail the in-court proceedings where, in Baldwin’s estimation, his attorney takes Basinger’s attorney to the woodshed. In several other entries in the timeline, Baldwin has made a cliche out of how he describes the glee other people take at his failures, so again I wonder how much of this must be projection because Baldwin seems to relish in watching his attorney “school” his counterparty.

Chapter 5, In the Best Interests of the Child, discusses the custody phase of Baldwin’s divorce. Baldwin, ever dramatic, describes his custody evaluator as “cadaverous” and like something out of an Edward Gorey painting. His references are always ancient and/or bizarre. He then describes his initial conversation with the custody evaluator. Everything Baldwin mentions is about trashing his ex-wife. There’s no indication if the evaluator was even asking questions about his ex-wife. I would have expected there to be a lot more focus on the relationship with the child. Baldwin was sobbing within minutes of talking to the evaluator and disclosing the intimate details of his relationship with his ex. I can only imagine how strange this must have been for that poor woman. She had some sort of out-of-body experience watching the dude from Beetlejuice and The Hunt for Red October blubbering on her couch.

Baldwin also says that his goal in that first meeting was to let this custody evaluator know he was the victim of parental alienation. Given that parental alienation is a controversial subject in family law, I’m sort of amazed that Baldwin’s attorneys didn’t caution him about launching into his harangue on parental alienation. I say “sort of” because… well, just read the rest of this mess. As I read on in Baldwin’s lengthy description of his interactions with the custody evaluator, it further confirmed my initial impressions. Baldwin says that he didn’t receive any coaching on how to talk to this woman and whenever he brought up the subject of parental alienation, she changed the subject.

Chapter 6, Parental Alienation, starts with what amounts to a version of something like a Wikipedia entry on parental alienation and how it was conceived of in 1985 by Richard Gardner, a child psychiatrist. I have spent a good deal of time recently learning more about parental alienation and from what I can tell, Gardner’s original version of it was out there and didn’t conform to the standard psychological principles. There are some interesting lectures I watched by Dr. Craig Childress that go into more detail about the history of the theory if you’re interested. Also read the ProPublica article I’ve mentioned elsewhere in this piece for a more skeptical view of the theory.

While I doubt any of the book was directly written by Baldwin, and he has an acknowledged ghost writer, this chapter comes off like it was written by a different author entirely. Baldwin also transparently uses people as sock puppets in this chapter to put words in their mouths.

Baldwin has the gall at the end of the chapter to quote a woman he knows who had a daughter who died of cancer. This woman compares her situation to Baldwin’s loss of his daughter. She says that Baldwin’s situation is worse because at least she knows there’s nothing she can do about her child who died. Baldwin’s situation is analogized to a kidnapping. I think to myself how can Baldwin make these claims and say these terribly incendiary things while knowing that his daughter, who he professes to care so much about, could one day read this bile? Baldwin’s premise is hopelessly flawed.

Chapter 7, London, is about Baldwin’s summer, where he had to schedule visitation because he had to work in London for a long period. Baldwin spends most of the rest of the chapter bitching about having to do 12 anger management classes while shooting a film. The way Baldwin describes having to complete these classes is so overwrought it was as if he was describing instead the 12 labors of Hercules. On and on about scheduling issues and the commute and how his counselor wasn’t sure if Baldwin was absorbing the lessons because Alec was spending so much time passing the blame.

Chapter 8, Not the Sharpest Knife, begins with Baldwin being assigned to see another therapist in California. Baldwin describes the guy as a hippie type. The big revelation Baldwin takes away from their meetings is that he shouldn’t react when he gets angry. Baldwin treats this kernel of knowledge as if it were a great insight.

Baldwin then describes his sessions with a parenting counselor. He makes another incredibly inappropriate comparison where he compares his daughter being “forced” to speak ill of him to a prisoner of war who is coerced in a propaganda film into condemning their country with a rifle to their head. It’s alarming how much violent imagery is involved in all of Baldwin’s strange and inappropriate comparisons.

Chapter 9, Raspberry Foam Blaster, is about the lengths Baldwin went to accommodate spending time with his daughter. There are more examples of parental alienation in other relationships. Descriptions of how Baldwin worked his schedule around his visitation and volunteered at Ireland’s school.

Chapter 10, All Rise, is about the open court custody trial that ensued after attempts at mediation failed. One of the great ironies for me in doing this project was that I undertook it after being burned out working on an enormous project involving the O.J. Simpson trial. I have been in O.J. world for months and felt like I needed to work on something else as a diversion so I could return with fresh eyes. As I read Baldwin’s book it gave me a new appreciation for how ubiquitous the O.J. case is in American life. Kim Basinger’s attorney was Howard Weitzman, who did her breach of contract trial in 1993. Weitzman was O.J.’s personal attorney and the original lawyer in the 1994 double murder trial. Kim’s divorce lawyers in California had also been Nicole Brown Simpson’s attorneys. Connections like these seem to crop up in almost anything I come across these days. 

Chapter 11, The Answer is Always No, is about the aftermath of the court trial settlement. Baldwin blathers on about the special master that was appointed to mediate disputes in his case after the settlement was in place.

Chapter 12, No Doubt, is a prolonged rant about Baldwin’s lack of access to his daughter and a report of abuse that was lodged against Baldwin and was investigated by child services. It becomes more and more clear reading Baldwin’s invective against his ex-wife and child that he is a total control freak.

Chapter 13, Leave a Message After the Tone, is about Alec beginning to do 30 Rock and the deterioration of his relationship with Ireland. This chapter covers the 2007 leak of Baldwin’s outrageous voicemail to Ireland that was posted on TMZ. Baldwin spends paragraph after paragraph complaining about how his daughter wouldn’t answer his calls at the appointed time. Maybe your daughter is tired of your shit, Alec. 

Baldwin repeated a favorite insult of his that Levin derived “an almost sexual level of pleasure from ruining other people’s lives.” Bizarrely, Baldwin was quoted in 2008 saying this same phrase about both Levin and his ex-wife Kim Basinger. I’m sure that’s revealing somehow, but I don’t even want to think about it because it’s so gross.

Baldwin then talks about how he was contemplating suicide in the wake of the release of the voicemail.

Chapter 14, A Trip to Cambridge, Baldwin meets with a professor to talk about family and criminal law and domestic violence issues. I could sense the O.J. Simpson case coming back into the picture and, indeed, it was brought up as an important milestone in America’s understanding of domestic violence. One part of my research on the Simpson case for a piece I am working on is how it changed the law, and one of the big ones is in the institution of mandatory reporting laws. 

In the Simpson case, Nicole called the police on O.J. many times, but O.J. was never arrested. With the changes ushered in with mandatory reporting laws which proliferated in the mid-90s, when police were called to a domestic violence incident, the partner who is accused of violence had to be arrested. The decision on whether to arrest was no longer up to the victim who was in many cases either financially or emotionally dependent on the defendant. These laws have had a mixed legacy in that they have contributed to the swelling populations of people in prison or jail, but they have also worked to interrupt the cycle of power and control that makes domestic violence relationships so toxic.

Chapter 15, Admonitions, is Baldwin’s parting shot at the family law system. The book was a slog to get through and I only did so because I have the researcher gene where I need to turn every page. Baldwin offers his advice to people getting married or divorced. It is what you would expect, like get a prenup, file first, ask your attorney questions and on and on. All of this was covered earlier in the book.

10/10/08 Baldwin trashed a film he co-starred in with Dane Cook called My Best Friend’s Girl. Baldwin admitted the film was beneath him, which I am sure the other members of the production appreciated. 

12/24/08 Baldwin is rumored to have had a fight with co-star Tina Fey where he dissed her body. I’m not sure if this is tongue-in-cheek or legit, as it was reported first in a tabloid, but it’s Alec, so there’s a good bet that where there’s smoke there’s fire.

1/11/09 I don’t want to include any stories piling on Alec for having addiction issues in the 80s, as he says he has been sober since then. But I will include this one piece where Alec talked about the drug and alcohol issues he had in his 20s just to point out that this guy is a jerk while being totally sober. I think he might be something of a dry drunk because he does seem miserable, bordering on depressed, and he obviously has big issues with self-regulation.

4/6/09 One of the things that I really disliked about Gawker was their penchant for outing closeted gay people. In this piece, Gawker dredged up material on internet muckraker Matt Drudge being gay and Alec Baldwin contributed an anecdote where he alleged that Drudge had made a pass at him that had a “kind of creepy quality to it.” 

12/1/09 Baldwin did an interview with Men’s Journal and said all of his movies suck and he is going to retire from acting in 2012. This fellow threatens to run away from home more than a sulking teen. It makes me feel secondhand embarrassment just seeing all his hollow threats to withhold his great gifts from an unappreciative public. What a dud.

1/4/10 Gawker always had catchy article titles and this one is no different: “Alec Baldwin Thinks of CNBC as a Dating Service.” The piece mentioned that Baldwin “approached CNBC’s Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, through an agent, to ask her out.” Which isn’t creepy at all. Apparently, Caruso-Cabrera had a phone conversation with Baldwin, and she told him she was politically conservative, and things fizzled after that. This shows to me how desperate Baldwin was at the time for a woman in his life.

2/12/10 Baldwin was taken to the hospital after he got into a fight with his then 14-year-old daughter Ireland and threatened to take some pills. Good lord. This was after he had a run in with a photographer for the billionth time outside of his building in NYC. The Gawker piece said that Baldwin assaulted the pap. Ireland called 911 according to media reports and said Baldwin was unresponsive. Baldwin’s spokesperson later claimed he was fine, and it was a misunderstanding. Alec’s PR people certainly earn their money. A Daily Mail story planted by Baldwin’s publicist tried to blame Kim Basinger for Baldwin’s hospital incident leaking. Photographer assault tally: 3

3/18/10 Baldwin is angry at Mike Walker, National Enquirer columnist, for reporting that he had screamed at Tina Fey on the set of 30 Rock. Baldwin called Walker a “whore” and a “queen” in comments to the Times of London.

3/18/10 In an Entertainment Weekly cover story, Baldwin talks about how he has “a great ass” and how he would love to remarry. This is an interesting read because he became involved with Hilaria a couple of years later and he is really a huge ass.

8/24/11 Alec appears to allude to 9/11 conspiracy theories in a late-night Twitter session. 

9/7/11 Baldwin calls a Starbucks barista an “uptight queen” with an “attitude problem.”

10/19/11 Baldwin joined the Occupy Wall Street protest for a couple of hours. Another thing I have noticed in chronicling Baldwin’s foibles is that he is a real trend hopper.

12/6/11 Baldwin is removed from an American Airlines flight after he refused to stop playing Words with Friends on his phone. American Airlines released a statement saying, “The passenger was extremely rude to the crew, calling them inappropriate names and using offensive language.” After being asked to turn off his phone, Baldwin went to the bathroom and slammed the door so loudly that the pilot crew became worried that there was a violent disturbance.

Baldwin wrote a response on the Huffington Post blaming the flight attendant and saying that other people were using their phones and weren’t told to put them away. What a child. In his post he commented “The lesson I’ve learned is to keep my phone off when the 1950’s gym teacher is on duty,” which seems like a case of projection to me given that Baldwin’s father was a high school teacher and coach. 

12/7/11 In the deluge of tweets that Baldwin fired off after he was kicked off American Airlines for refusing to turn off his phone and for acting like a crazy person, Baldwin worked in a diss about the Greyhound Bus company, calling the airliner incident a “Greyhound bus experience.” This forced Greyhound to respond and say that Alec didn’t know what he was talking about and probably hadn’t been on one of their buses. Either way, to me, it shows the consistent habit of Baldwin to create collateral damage in the wake of his tantrums. 

12/8/11 I am continually astonished at how low Baldwin can stoop in his petty feuds. In another blunder after his removal from an American Airlines flight, Baldwin complains about the restrictions imposed by airlines after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

“I believe carriers and airports have used [9/11] as an excuse to make the air travel experience as inelegant as possible.”

In response, a 9/11 widow took Baldwin to task telling him through the media that he should not blame the airlines but take responsibility for his actions. Baldwin has invoked 9/11 on a few occasions I have covered now to excuse his ugly behavior. 

3/11/12 Baldwin calls Westboro Baptist Church leader Fred Phelps an “old closet queen scallywag” and directs Fred to “make me a sandwich.” Baldwin never met a gay slur he didn’t like, apparently.

4/11/12 Baldwin rips the Today show for staking out his apartment after the arrest of his alleged stalker. Baldwin tweeted that he was leaving NBC “just in time.” Baldwin did not end up leaving 30 Rock.

5/23/12 Baldwin called Harvey Weinstein a douchebag in a rant at Cannes after Weinstein declined to participate in a documentary Baldwin was making with James Toback. Isn’t it odd in retrospect that Baldwin is so close to so many of the worst shitheads in Hollywood? Between Toback and Weinstein alone, there are probably 500 allegations of sexual abuse. Add in Woody Allen and Tom Cruise and a bunch of other creeps that Baldwin loves to defend and I’m starting to see a pattern.

6/19/12 Another incident with a photographer in NYC. I thought this might be the same as the 6/29/12 incident, but no; they are different. This one has a lot of the classic Baldwin MOs: Baldwin says that the photographer almost hit him with his camera. Baldwin has said this repeatedly as an excuse. The photographer said Baldwin punched him numerous times, including in the chin. Baldwin tweeted soon after the altercation “A ‘photographer’ almost hit me in the face with his camera this morning #allpaparazzishouldbewaterboarded.”

After the incident, Baldwin registered his disdain for the paps by wearing a white sheet over his head in the streets of New York like a crazy person. Photographer assault tally: 4

6/19/12 Baldwin trashes New York Daily News editor Colin Myler who had just taken over earlier in the year. Baldwin said that ever since “the English Queen took over the Daily News, they lie like the Post.” Always with the gay slurs. 

6/29/12 I swear I am seeing double. There are so many of these incidents with photographers piling up, and it is startling to me at least to see them chronicled one after another. This incident is especially unseemly because Baldwin was caught on camera manhandling a much smaller guy and saying to him, “I know you got raped by a priest or something.” Good god this man is impossibly ugly inside. Baldwin also called the guy a little girl. Photographer assault tally: 5

7/2/12 Baldwin, in another attention-seeking move, said he was going to quit Twitter and deactivated his account. Baldwin was getting married to Hilaria at the time and the Vanity Fair profile of his is a fun read knowing all that has happened in the decade plus since then. Baldwin tells the interviewer that his bride-to-be is the type of person who’s never seen 30 Rock. Sure, Jan. Baldwin also talks about wanting to go into politics. This is a theme that I keep coming back to, but Trump and Baldwin are the mirror universe versions of each other.

Alec also talks about Harvey Levin in the piece, another whipping boy Baldwin often returns to and always in terms of the violent revenge fantasies he has:

“He outlined vivid fantasies of the gruesome ways in which he might have murdered his wife’s lawyer (“with a baseball bat”) or Harvey Levin, the TMZ producer who posted the embarrassing voice mail Baldwin left for his daughter: “I wanted to stick a knife in him and gut him and kill him and I wanted him to die breathing his last breath looking into my eyes.”

2/16/13 Hilaria was sued by a student from her yoga class who said that he was injured in her class when she forced him to perform a dangerous move. A friend of the plaintiff contacted Gawker and explained that the class was very crowded, and Hilaria instructed the class to do handstands. The plaintiff fell and his leg went through the window, as he tried to avoid other students, and his leg was impaled in a piece of glass, and he had lost movement in his foot.

2/18/13 A photographer accused Baldwin of calling him a crackhead in yet another angry, violent confrontation on the streets of NYC. Baldwin was also accused by another man, a retired NYPD detective, of using an unbelievably offensive racial epithet. Photographer assault tally: 6

2/18/13 In the wake of Baldwin’s meltdown, a New York state senator, Malcolm Smith, called for Baldwin to be blacklisted from Hollywood for his bad behavior. Baldwin shot back that Smith should be careful in leveling allegations, invoking an alleged link that Smith had to a charity involving Hurricane Katrina that was accused of improprieties. Just another example of Baldwin slinging mud.

“As someone who’s been regularly investigated, [Smith] should be much more careful about jumping to conclusions.”

2/20/13 After Tracy Morgan commented and said Baldwin should apologize if he said the racist slur he was alleged to have used a couple of days before, Baldwin refused to back down and again denied the claim. Look, maybe Baldwin hurled bigoted insults at the other 20 photographers he has assaulted over the years, but do I think he did it again? It sounds pretty far-fetched to me, but you be the judge. 

2/21/13 Baldwin and Shia LaBeouf were involved in an ugly feud in a play and Baldwin told the director either he or LaBeouf had to go. This was over a dispute the two actors had because Baldwin did not memorize his lines and LeBeouf became frustrated. LaBeouf was accused of plagiarizing his apology after he was fired. This is among the sillier fracases of Baldwin’s career, but certainly fits the pattern of Baldwin being a prickly asshole.

6/28/13 TMZ called Baldwin a liar after Baldwin tried to wriggle out of yet another ugly incident. Baldwin called a reporter a “toxic little queen” and encouraged his followers to harass the reporter. Baldwin tried to say it wasn’t a homophobic comment after the conflict started on Twitter and escalated to a phone call. All of this was over the reporter writing a story about Hilaria tweeting while at the funeral of James Gandolfini.

Baldwin’s attempt to spin his comments as not being homophobic was especially dumb because he also tweeted “If (sic) put my foot up your f***ing ass, George Stark, but I’m sure you’d dig it too much.” What a great guy and a champion for gay rights. GLAAD actually defended Baldwin because he had supported the organization, but they even eventually turned on Baldwin because of an even uglier incident about a year later. The link to the Gawker article has screenshots of Baldwin’s awful tweets.

8/27/13 Baldwin attacked a paparazzi in NYC and both parties called the cops. Ultimately, no charges were filed and again Baldwin claimed to be protecting his wife, who had recently given birth. I’m not sure how it makes sense to protect your wife by getting into a dangerous confrontation in front of witnesses, but what do I know? Photographer assault tally: 7

10/9/13 Baldwin writes an angry letter to the East Hampton Star paper bitching about local paparazzi and “gypsy cabs bringing massive hordes of unwashed revelers” to the Hamptons. Eew, can you believe they’re letting the poors in? How gross. Baldwin uses the term “vermin” to describe photographers in the long, rambling missive. 

10/12/13 Another angry letter by Baldwin shows up in the East Hampton Star. This time, Baldwin responded to a letter from Jason Gutterman calling Gutterman a bad writer and disgrace for challenging Baldwin about Baldwin’s recent bad behavior with reporters and paparazzi. 

Honestly, I started going down the road of searching the East Hampton Star for more stuff about Baldwin, but he’s been in so many local bitch fests, I had to just nope out. Feel free to follow up, anyone who wants to wade into the morass. I cannot believe how bottomless Alec’s capacity is for malice and controversy. 

11/12/13 Baldwin gives the performance of his career and sobs on the stand in his trial against his alleged stalker. The TMZ article even mentions “(...) some spectators in the courtroom felt it was not authentic.”

11/14/13 Genevieve Sabourin found guilty at stalking trial where she was accused of stalking Baldwin. I won’t cover this here as I wrote about the case extensively in my deep dive on Hilaria but I will just note that the circumstances of this case read as very fishy to me and I think it is possible that the charges were manufactured by Alec and Hilaria. There is an excellent case to be made that Baldwin perjured himself while testifying in the case.

11/14/13 Alec chases down a photographer and hurls offensive anti-gay language at him. Baldwin appears to be seething despite winning his stalking trial against Genevieve Sabourin. The angry rant is caught on video tape and Baldwin appears to use a very offensive slur.

I have always thought that the multiple day rolling meltdown following the trial showed some sort of consciousness of guilt on Alec’s part. Why was he so angry when he won the case and supposedly got this woman put away who was causing him so much trouble? Photographer assault tally: 8

11/15/13 Baldwin admits to using a gay slur after trying to lie about what word he used in an angry confrontation with a paparazzi.

11/15/13 Baldwin threatens a local news reporter and insults him after being asked a question about the stalking case. Photographer (or reporter) assault tally: 9

11/15/13 Baldwin smacks a camera out of a photographer’s hand after pushing the photographer and lunging at him like a foaming-at-the-mouth psycho. Baldwin again uses his go-to excuse that the photographer attempted to hit him with a camera and then threatens the man telling him “You take a walk ... you don’t wanna get hurt, do ya?” Photographer assault tally: 10

11/15/13 November 15, 2013 is a day that will live in Alec Baldwin infamy as it becomes a rolling meltdown in the wake of the trial of his alleged stalker and his multiple run-ins with reporters and photographers. Baldwin summons a “gay friend hairdresser” to make a statement on his behalf as they stand next to each other awkwardly on camera. Baldwin tells the assembled press that he has “a gay friend card” whatever that means. Yuck.

11/15/13 Baldwin got into his third angry confrontation of the day as he was recorded screaming at a woman reporter and demanding that she be arrested. Baldwin also yelled at assembled reporters and banged into a parked car as he drove away. Baldwin went off on the reporter after his wife, Hilaria, told Baldwin that the woman had nearly hit her. Hilaria seems to have a habit of instigating confrontations with reporters and photographers by claiming some sort of infraction on their part which sends Alec into a boiling rage. Photographer (or reporter) assault tally: 11

11/15/13 Baldwin is suspended from his talk show on MSNBC after his gay slur scandal. Baldwin apologized after trying to deny the claim that he used a slur by saying that what he said was misheard in a transparent attempt to deflect responsibility.

11/21/13 In the wake of his gay slur scandal, Baldwin spoke at a tech conference in San Francisco. Baldwin tried to smooth over the accusations of homophobia by making a series of awkward comments about his platonic love for other men. These came off as a total non sequitur for me, as the comments were not relevant at all to the underlying issues involved in Baldwin using gay slurs. 

11/26/13 Baldwin’s MSNBC show is canceled after Baldwin screamed at a photographer and allegedly used a gay slur. GLAAD and other gay rights organizations condemned Baldwin. Baldwin blamed a GLAAD official and a gay blogger for campaigning to have him fired. This man is incapable of taking any sort of accountability for his actions.

11/27/13 Writing for The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates makes the case that Baldwin is a bigot after his gay bashing cancellation. Some of Baldwin’s apologist friends had tried to rehabilitate him and make the case that Baldwin wasn’t really anti-gay, including Wes Alwan. Coates offered a strong rebuttal recounting some of the array of other offenses I’ve documented.

2/2/14 Baldwin went ballistic at a fan on Twitter after being asked if he owed Dylan Farrow an apology after supporting Woody Allen. Baldwin went off on a profanity-laced jag saying the alleged sexual abuse incident was none of his business, which seems to be Baldwin’s default position in any controversy involving people he’s worked with who are accused of reprehensible behavior.

2/23/14 Baldwin pens an absolutely wild open letter to the public announcing his departure from public life. This is one of the more insane entries on this list and Baldwin obviously couldn’t shut up and keep his thoughts to himself. I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this one because it’s such a crazy ride. Baldwin also makes some more incredibly offensive comments about trans people in a piece where he’s trying to defend himself over accusations of using gay slurs. Here’s one example:

“One young man, an F-to-M tranny, said, ‘Are you here to get dry-cleaned, like Brett Ratner?’ Meaning I could do some mea culpa, write them a six-figure check, go to a dinner, sob at the table, give a heartfelt speech, beg for forgiveness. I thought to myself: Beg for forgiveness for something I didn’t do?”

5/13/14 Baldwin is arrested after being belligerent with cops who contacted him about riding his bike the wrong way on 5th Avenue in NYC. Baldwin later went nuclear on Twitter about the cops and gave out the officer’s name and badge number. Baldwin alleged that the paparazzi outside nearly hit his daughter with a camera. This seems to be a common tactic by Baldwin. He’s made a similar claim about his wife. Baldwin also lashed out at the city: “New York City is a mismanaged carnival of stupidity that is desperate for revenue and anxious to criminalize behavior once thought benign.”

7/24/14 Baldwin attended a court hearing about a disorderly conduct charge from earlier in the year for riding a bike the wrong way on 5th Avenue. Baldwin enters a deferred prosecution type of arrangement where the charge will be dismissed if he stays out of trouble for 6 months.

8/26/14 This doesn’t really count as a controversy, but this is a hilarious meme-worthy gif of Alec catching a ball at the US Open sitting next to Hilaria with her old face. Do what thou wilt.

8/31/14 Alec erupted at a pap when approached for photos in a public park area. Baldwin is recorded becoming violently angry, and the photographer said Baldwin pushed and shoved him despite the photographer being far away from the family. The photographer also said he declined to press charges. The first cop on the scene saw Baldwin putting the pap in a headlock. Photographer assault tally: 12

1/23/15 Gawker reports that Jeffrey Epstein’s address book had a listing for Alec Baldwin among many other celebrities. Hmmm…

1/25/15 Alec, Hilaria and Carmen are moved to coach with those dirty poor people on a Delta flight and Baldwin was overheard trashing Delta and swearing he’d never fly on the airline again. After his American Airlines fatwa, Baldwin may run out of other options for airlines.

7/28/15 Baldwin defends Tom Cruise from allegations related to abuses of Scientology. Baldwin appeared on Howard Stern and talked about how he thought Scientology helped Cruise navigate his immense celebrity. Baldwin said it was none of his business despite acknowledging that he is aware there are many allegations related to Scientology abusing people. Baldwin said he has a ball with Tom on set, so he doesn’t care if Scientology is a toxic cult. This clip explains a lot about Baldwin to me.

2/14/16 The New Yorker published a lengthy piece on TMZ founder Harvey Levin, one of Baldwin’s archenemies. Baldwin is quoted in the piece on his hatred for Levin in florid language. I would imagine that Levin relishes needling Baldwin on some level because Baldwin is such an asshole and because of his homophobic tirades. Here’s Baldwin’s quote on Levin:

“There was a time when my greatest wish was to stab Harvey Levin with a rusty implement and watch his entrails go running down my forearm, in some Macbethian stance. I wanted him to die in my arms, while looking into my eyes, and I wanted to say to him, ‘Oh, Harvey, you thoughtless little pig.’ ” Baldwin added, “He is a festering boil on the anus of American media.”

5/4/16 Alec screams at a photographer for taking photos of his wife, despite them being in a known paparazzi spot. Alec told the man to shut up. TMZ mentions that there was an extra layer of irony because Baldwin had recently written a piece in New York Magazine about moving from New York to LA to avoid paps. Photographer assault tally: 13

5/5/16 Alec and Hilaria go to paparazzi hotspot Craig’s in LA a day after Alec unloaded on a photographer for snapping pics of his wife. This seems very bizarre, given Alec’s ugly rant the day before. These types of pap walks are usually coordinated, and celebs show up at this sort of designated photo op as part of a coordinated PR strategy.

9/12/16 Baldwin sues art dealer for allegedly selling him a fake painting.

10/3/16 Baldwin premiers as Trump on SNL. The New Yorker review is interesting on several levels in retrospect. It seems written from another timeline where Hillary was president. The piece mentioned Kate McKinnon as Hillary saying, in response to a nonsense monologue from Baldwin’s Trump, “I think I’m going to be president!” The piece compares Trump to Baldwin as New York assholes with enormous egos who had long toyed with running for office. I’d recently had a conversation that touched on a lot of the same comparisons, so it affirmed a lot of my thinking.

12/27/16 Hilaria’s pile of shit book The Living Clearly Method: 5 Principles for a Fit Body, Healthy Mind & Joyful Life is released. The book is puzzling to me on a number of levels. I am not a publishing or marketing professional so I might be missing something, but why would you release a book two days after Christmas? Aren’t the holidays one of the biggest book selling windows? Whatever. This book has more problems than its release date.

The reason why I am taking a detour to talk about this book is that I came across an anecdote in it that was so full of shit I had to mention it. Based on Alec’s behavior we have covered so far, let me know what you think about this story: Alec and a pregnant Hilaria are pushing their oldest kid Carmen in a stroller in the park. A woman collides with Carmen’s stroller. This woman then says some unkind words and rolls her eyes at the Baldwin clan. Hilaria is taken aback at first, but she tries to defuse the situation by saying “thank you” to the woman. Was Hilaria being sarcastic? It’s not spelled out in the book, but because she is uniquely humorless, I’m guessing no.

This sets the woman off even more, and she then “launched into an angry rant” about how her foot was nearly crushed. Hilaria, being a saintly woman, gestures to Carmen in an effort to let this woman know her language is inappropriate. Well, this set the woman off even more so Hilaria, like Jesus Christ in stiletto heels, turns the other cheek and walks away from the ugly, fat pig who was bullying her.

There are a lot of things that are wrong with this story, but by far the biggest issue is that Alec doesn’t react at all. In fact, I had to go back to the beginning to double-check if she had said Alec was on the walk with her. We have seen many occasions where Alec blows his stack over much more minor perceived offenses, like people “almost hitting” Hilaria with a camera lens. The only way this fantasy concoction could be more fake is if everyone in the park started clapping after Hilaria walked away from the screaming woman.

While we’re on the subject of Hilaria and this book, I want to mention one other observation. The calculated nature of Hilaria’s life story is disturbing. Everything she writes about her life is couched in such a way to afford her some sort of plausible deniability about her fake Spanish background. She never comes right out and says she was born in Spain and is a native Spanish speaker. She implies it. This is so damning in my opinion because it shows a clear indication of a guilty conscience.

This should be a personal book that covers details of her life and biography. There are entire chapters devoted to her life. She barely mentions anything about her supposedly Spanish upbringing. In fact, the word “Spain” does not appear in the book. There are only five instances of the word “Spanish.”

In the very first chapter, called My Story, on the first page Hilaria talks about how she grew up doing gymnastics and then as a young girl “the free-spirited world of traditional Spanish flamenco won my heart.” Two sentences later she mentions falling headlong into “the world of Latin ballroom dance” as an early teen.

On page 8 she describes meeting Alec and how they got married. She explains they have a Spanish phrase inscribed on the inside of their wedding rings: somos un buen equipo. We are a good team.

On page 200, “Ask a Spanish person about paella and they’ll tell you it takes a lifetime to perfect and a long time to cook!” Why don’t you ask yourself, as a Spanish person, because it’s your book? The other two references are in recipes for Spanish food.

All of these mentions are vague and they don’t paint her into a corner. It’s almost as if during the process of writing the book, the publisher had an editor or fact checker go over the content and made sure to not include any false claims.

11/13/17 Baldwin settles lawsuit over a faked painting an art studio sold him. The gallery screwed Baldwin, but Baldwin characteristically made a huge deal about it wanting to “make an example” of the art dealer

3/15/17 In a bizarre video posted online, a fan asks Baldwin for a photo and Baldwin tells the man, who is an African American, to “stay black.” Okay then.

10/31/17 Baldwin equivocates in his first comments about his friend, the director James Toback, who had been accused by over 300 women of sexual misconduct. Baldwin had earlier trashed the writer of the Toback story Kayla Cobb on Twitter but had otherwise been silent on the allegation until commenting to the LA Times. 

Baldwin denied ever talking to Toback about his sex life, so he appeared to be shirking any sort of guilty knowledge or responsibility. Baldwin acknowledged later in the interview that he knew Toback hit on a lot of women “in a vague way” and then Baldwin deflected in a followup question saying that Trump was a sexual predator and speculated that people like Toback may be targeted because the Me Too movement could not bring down the ultimate evil that is Trump. This is so gross to me because Baldwin appears to be using Trump as a shield for the reprehensible behavior of his friends.

2/6/18 Baldwin pulled out of an acting role in a series by Black-ish creator Kenya Barris. Baldwin read the script and disliked the part and that production wouldn’t come to New York to film. This story had to have negative consequences for the show, as it advertised that Baldwin thought the project was trash.

3/2/18 Donald Trump and Alec Baldwin duke it out on Twitter over Baldwin’s SNL impression. Baldwin insulted Trump about his dalliance with a porn star and possible impeachment. The world is dumber for having witnessed the exchange. 

9/18/18 Justin Bieber and Hailey Baldwin issue a statement denying Alec Baldwin’s comments made at the Emmys that the two had eloped. Baldwin said, “They just went off and got married. They went ahead and did it without listening to anyone.” The couple issued a statement clarifying that they were not actually married yet.

10/10/18 Baldwin is roasted after doing a profile in the Hollywood Reporter where he says that Black people love him now that he’s been impersonating Trump on SNL. Baldwin also talks about the Me Too movement and charges that he’s defended pals like Woody Allen and James Toback.

11/2/18 Baldwin is arrested in a parking spot assault case. Baldwin was cited for assault and harassment after he punched a man in the jaw after Baldwin says the man stole a parking spot from him in New York City. Baldwin accosted the man according to a witness and yelled at the man, saying, “fuck off.” Baldwin later denied the allegations on Twitter. 

1/23/19 Baldwin pleads guilty to harassment over parking spot fight from 2018 where he was alleged to have punched another man in the jaw. Baldwin said the guy took a parking spot from him. Baldwin had originally been charged with assault and agreed to the lesser charge and to take anger management classes.

11/5/19 Baldwin says he is suing the man he got into a fight with over a parking spot in 2018 saying the man lied to cops and made defamatory statements about Baldwin. The man had sued Baldwin for punching and pushing him in the dispute.

8/6/20 Baldwin does a livestream on Instagram with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a controversial figure for his views on vaccines. Baldwin was criticized for lending his platform to a vaccine skeptic during a pandemic.

12/21/20 Griftmas begins when Hilaria Baldwin’s fake Spanish heritage is revealed. Leni Briscoe’s tweet goes viral exposing Hilaria.

10/21/21 The Rust shooting happens. This event capped off a ten month stretch where Alec and Hilaria’s public profiles became irreparably tarnished after the Griftmas incident in December of 2020 where Hilaria was exposed for faking her Spanish ethnicity.

10/21/21 Baldwin does an interview with police investigators in New Mexico which is recorded on video and later posted on YouTube. The heads of lawyers around the country explode.

10/30/21 Baldwin does the unhinged roadside “press conference” with Hilaria. He and Hilaria try to address the Rust shooting but they come off as totally nuts. Alec snaps at Hilaria as she addresses the press. The TMZ post also mentions several retweets Alec was making at the time from supporters that he quickly deleted.

12/1/21 Baldwin does his crazy sit-down interview with George Stephanopoulos and makes a bunch of insane statements including that he didn’t pull the trigger on the gun which killed Halyna Hutchins and injured Joel Souza. This interview ended up pissing off not only the widower of Hutchins but also the prosecutors looking at the case.

12/14/21 Hilaria says in an Instagram post that Alec “shushed her” while she was in labor and asked her to keep it down. Maybe he was playing Words with Friends?

1/19/22 Baldwin sued for defamation for accusing family member of marine killed in Afghanistan of being a January 6th rioter.

5/24/22 A viral airport altercation clip leads Alec to leave a comment. In the clip, an American Airlines employee and an NFL player get into a fight and Alec left an Instagram comment saying that Brendan Langley, the NFL player, should be put on a no fly list for hitting the airlines employee because the worker had an expectation of being safe at work. TMZ points out the obvious irony in Baldwin of all people opening his big fat yapper about workplace safety. It’s doubly ironic because it involved American Airlines, who Alec swore to never patronize because of the Words with Friends incident where he got tossed from a plane for refusing to turn his phone off.

6/29/22 In a glitchy livestream, Baldwin interviews Woody Allen about the release of Allen’s new book. The interview was a trainwreck where the 86-year-old Allen and Baldwin talked without addressing the elephant in the room, the long-standing sexual abuse allegations against Allen by his daughter Dylan Farrow.

8/5/22 Baldwin hosted Cheryl Hines on his podcast and was criticized by media outlets for “whitewashing” the reputation of Hines’ controversial husband RFK Jr. in the interview with Hines.

8/7/22 Alec posts a bizarre video praising Anne Heche after Heche died crashing her car into a house. Alec went on a strange tangent talking in-depth about The Juror, a 1996 thriller that Baldwin and Heche co-starred in.

8/19/22 Baldwin does a wild CNN interview where he says he was afraid Trump supporters would kill him after Trump speculated about Rust shooting.

11/12/22 Baldwin sues crew members involved in Rust shooting.

1/19/23 Baldwin is charged with involuntary manslaughter for Rust shooting.

3/10/23 An outlet reports that Baldwin is being sued for a car accident that is alleged to have happened in the spring of 2021. A California man says he was hit by Baldwin on the Pacific Coast Highway after Baldwin left a shopping center. The plaintiff in the lawsuit said that Baldwin was being impatient and negligent when he sped up to try and get in front of the man who had the right of way. Baldwin is said to have crossed a double yellow line. The man is suing for hospital bills and lost wages.

4/20/23 Charges dropped in Rust shooting.