For whatever reason, Alec Baldwin was given a weekly talk show on MSNBC. Well, I can name a few reasons why he got it: he’s famous, people like him, he sparks enough controversy by occasionally opening his mouth off-camera that the publicity can, in fact, be good for business. Of course, then he goes and does things like calling a photographer — allegedly, I will say — “a cocksucking faggot.” You see, he definitely called this stranger who attempted to take a picture of him “a cocksucking” something. It certainly sounds like that something was “faggot,” as it was caught on tape. Baldwin, of course, denies this, but it infuriated enough people that the actor was fired from his MSNBC gig yesterday. And, boy, he’s not happy about it.
In an exclusive interview with Gothamist, Baldwin confirmed that the New York Post’s Page Six item about his firing was true, and he was quite defensive about it.
Showing a video in which I call someone a ‘cocksucking something’… you can’t really tell what I’m saying, and we live in a world in which the phrase ‘TMZ’s enhanced audio’ exists. ‘TMZ’s enhanced audio.’ And then with The Post… there’s nothing you can do when you get thrown in this washing machine, nothing. You know? Nothing. All you end up doing is just defending yourself all day long.
He goes on to complain about his MSNBC colleague Martin Bashir, who suggested that Sarah Palin would be a good candidate for antiquated slave torture after she compared the federal debt to slavery. “Martin Bashir’s on the air, and he made his comment on the air!” he contends, wondering why Bashir wasn’t fired, before going on to suggest that not even he knows exactly what he called the photographer. “I dispute half the comment I made… if I called him ‘cocksucking maggot’ or a ‘cocksucking motherfucker’… ‘faggot’ is not the word that came out of my mouth. That I know.”
But here’s what he also knows: he lost his show… BECAUSE OF THE GAYS! Or at least what he calls “the fundamentalist wing of gay advocacy.” Specifically, he places the blame on a select few of this cadre of lavender velvet-laden Elders of Zion who are destroying the careers of millionaire actors-cum-cable-television-talking-heads with a flick of a limp wrist. “Rich Ferraro and Andrew Sullivan — they’re out there, they’ve got you,” Baldwin theorizes. “Rich Ferraro, this is probably one of his greatest triumphs. They killed my show.”
Nothing fills this gay man with more glee than the notion that the shockingly beloved Alec Baldwin, who lately has been revered as some left-wing hero and and who people were seriously hoping would run for the mayor of New York City — wait, let’s just think about that for a second! Forget de Blasio’s New York. Can you imagine Baldwin’s New York, where all the “cocksucking” queens in Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen would head for the hills upstate to their second homes while those of us too poor to leave Brooklyn and Astoria would find ourselves skipping karaoke at Pieces in favor of forced attendance at an endless revival of Glengarry Glen Ross on Broadway, only with Baldwin’s character from the film added to the original script? That’s not the New York I know. Thank god THE HOMOSUPREMICISTS have kept another baby boomer white guy from being in front of a camera! It was for the greater good!
In all seriousness, while I like to think that queer people have some power in this country, it’s clear that they don’t when guys like Baldwin can toss around anti-gay epithets like weightless flower petals and act like it’s no big deal. Alec Baldwin is clearly an angry guy — a brute, hyper-masculine asshole who at this point in his celebrity life thinks he can be a dick to pretty much anyone and get away with it. It’s not just the fact that he called someone a “faggot” and got caught; the New York Post also quotes an anonymous source from Baldwin’s staff who suggested the firing came after Baldwin demonstrated his terrible attitude toward other MSNBC employees.
Besides demanding a humidifier because he claimed the air at 30 Rock was too dry, Baldwin alienated staffers when he demanded a separate makeup room being used by a woman with cancer who is sensitive to hairspray. When Baldwin was told he couldn’t have his way, he allegedly bellowed at the top of his lungs, “I don’t give a f uc k if she has cancer or not, I want that f ucking makeup room.”
Charming! Of course, Baldwin doesn’t really deny this in the interview with Gothamist, either. “People who I worked with that I cared about — these people were all very supportive of the show,” he says. “Now there was somebody on the staff who I did not want to work with. There was somebody on the staff who I thought wasn’t a good fit for me. And I wouldn’t rule out if that person went to the Post and gave them that story.”
Of course, it seems like the best advice anyone could give to Alec Baldwin is: “don’t be such a dick.” I mean, seriously. I have a surprising amount of patience for celebrities who complain about paparazzi, although in Baldwin’s case I have little tolerance. Do you know why they are following him all of the time? Because he has a long history of being a nasty, mean, vicious man who will lash out on camera. That makes for good news. If he were half as smart as anyone thought he was, he’d behave a little bit better. And it’s nobody’s fault but his own that he lost his show, which he casually half-admits to Gothamist: “And I have to take some responsibility for that myself.” Well, work harder at that, maybe? But as far as I’m concerned, TV could use one less old, straight, white guy on air, and if Baldwin wants to destroy his own career with his fat mouth, I support him 100 percent.