Alec Baldwin has hit out at the paparazzi that have harassed him (and the tabloids that pay them) in a scathing blog post.
The post arrives just days after Baldwin’s suspension from his new MSNBC show on Friday, when he had what was called a homophobic “freak out” on the paparazzi that were following him all day.
The post opens with Baldwin telling his side of the “freak out” story, suggesting that TMZ was lying when they reported he called a paparazzi a “c**ksucking f*g”: “One is that I never used the word faggot in the tape recording being offered as evidence against me. What word is said right after the other choice word I use is unclear. But I can assure you, with complete confidence, that a direct homophobic slur (or indirect one for that matter) is not spoken,” Baldwin writes… Which is a shame, because the video is quite clear and it doesn’t support his re-telling of events.
He also took an amusing shot at CNN Anchor Anderson Cooper. Baldwin wrote: “We do take a small amount of pride in knowing that we beat CNN in the ratings each of our nights. (I forget who they had on at that time.), referring to AC360 – Cooper’s show.
Cooper, who is openly gay, has been one of Baldwin’s biggest critics for some time now, and is always quick to tweet when Baldwin does something he doesn’t approve of.
“Wow, Alec Baldwin shows his true colors yet again. How is he going to lie and excuse his anti-gay slurs this time?,” Cooper tweeted before adding: “Must read Alec Baldwin’s latest excuses. They are actually so ridiculous they are funny.”
Baldwin’s piece closes with a very serious message which will hopefully go some ways towards getting the paparazzi to leave him alone. Their presence around his wide and newborn baby seems to be the source of his most recent issues:
My wife is a young mother with a newborn child. Yet reporters harass and hector her and our baby outside our home in ways that approximate a hockey brawl. It is shameful. And it should be illegal.
I am concerned for my family. In Bloomberg’s New York, forty or fifty paparazzi are allowed to block streets, inconvenience homeowners, workers and shoppers, and make life miserable for my neighbors. … They provoke me, daily, by getting dangerously close to me with their cameras as weapons, hoping I will react. When I do, the weapon doubles as a device to record my reaction. And then, apparently, I lose every time…
This country’s obsession with the private lives of famous people is tragic. It’s tragic in the sense that it is so clearly a projection of people’s frustration about their government, their economy, their own spiritual bankruptcy. You have no voice in Washington. In Washington, or in any statehouse, no one actually cares what you think. So you post online, you vote with a Roman-esque thumbs up or down on the celebrity debacle of the day. That is your right. It’s also fatal misdirection of your voice and need to judge. Occupy Wall Street, on their worst day, had more integrity than the comments page of this website ever will.
Baldwin went on to express that he would trade in the fame and fortune for the safety of his family: “If quitting the television business, the movie business, the theater, any component of entertainment, is necessary in order to bring safety and peace to my family, then that is an easy choice,” the 30 Rock star wrote.
>> Click Here to read Baldwin’s entire blog post on HuffPo.
Do you think it’s OK to call someone a ‘F*g’ if they’re threatening the safety of your kids? – Do you think Alec is just plain homophobic? – Let us know what you think in the comments below!
