Press surrounding Alec Baldwin in the last 24 hours has progressively plummeted from terrible to straight up horrific, as the mighty wrath of the well-practiced, all consuming Internet Backlash has been borne upon the virtually IRL Jack Donaghy, serving up a steaming dish of Your Career Is Temporarily Ruined. Bon appétit, Alec Baldwin.
To cut the increasingly complex story to the chase, on Thursday Alec Baldwin was lambasted by celebrity-watchdog stalwarts TMZ, after the site posted a video of Baldwin cursing a paparazzo for encroaching on his and his family’s personal space. TMZ claimed the video saw Baldwin yelling at the photographer, saying he was a “cocksucking fag”. The internet duly exploded, naturally, and Alec Baldwin greeted his haters on twitter, essentially accusing TMZ of defamation and confirming that his wording was “fathead”, not “fag”. Hm. Much better.
Baldwin took to twitter—with tweets that have since been deleted, but are documented on Buzzfeed—saying in a string of arguments that sounded peculiarly like Digging His Own Grave, that “Acoustic analysis proves the word is fathead. Fathead”; “If TMZ asserts that I used an anti-gay epithet, I will sue them”; “Anti-gay slurs are wrong. They not only offend, but threaten hard fought tolerance of LGBT rights”, while sidestepping the fact that “cocksucker” could indeed be considered an anti-gay slur, but insisted, “If c’sucker offends, then I apologise. Anti-gay? never.” Basically-
Following the controversy, MSNBC cancelled the two upcoming episodes of Baldwin’s late night show, to which the actor penned an apology on the network’s website, saying: “I did not intend to hurt or offend anyone with my choice of words, but clearly I have – and for that I am deeply sorry. Words are important. I understand that, and will choose mine with great care going forward.”
Since that statement, Alec Baldwin wrote a piece for The Huffington Post, further explaining the ordeal. Denouncing the toxic effects of paparazzi harassment and hoping the issue could be seen as something separate to his MSNBC project, Baldwin admitted, “Whether the show comes back at all is at issue right now.”
Keep pouring, Alec Baldwin. This will probably only get worse.
Via TMZ, Buzzfeed, Huffington Post.
