Alec Baldwin Says “Goodbye To Public Life” By Reflecting On A Year Of Homophobic Taunts And Paparazzi Assaults
Arrivederci, Alec Baldwin.
In a cover story for this week’s New York Magazine titled ‘I Give Up‘, Alec Baldwin announced his retirement. Well, sort of. More specifically, Baldwin’s announced he was saying “goodbye to public life”, and will “go back to being an actor now.” (Sorry for getting your hopes up.)
It’s been quite a tumultuous year for the actor, what with his spat with TMZ head, Harvey Levin; getting his MSNBC Up Late show cancelled; his Broadway play Orphans racked with LaBeouf beefs and then cut short; and having to deal with those accusations of homophobia. In the cover feature, Baldwin candidly addressed each of these issues. And in true Alec Baldwin style, he didn’t hold back.
Dat duck pout.
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On the media he “despises”:
“I loathe and despise the media in a way I did not think possible,” Baldwin said, before noting the irony of making such a statement in a magazine. “I’m aware that it’s ironic that I’m making this case in the media, but this is the last time I’m going to talk about my personal life in an American publication ever again.” So, you know, stop yelling “Hypocrite!” at him already.
Baldwin also seems shocked by the prevalence of tabloid reporting in the news today. “This isn’t the days of Rona Barrett and Ron Galella, who were viewed as outcasts or peripheral at best,” he said, noting the media establishment’s collusion with the “predatory” paparazzi. “Paparazzi today are part of a network that includes the Huffington Post and, much to my dismay, even NBC News, in their reliance on tabloid reporting.”
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On MSNBC:
One of Baldwin’s biggest missteps last year was his stint as host of Up Late on MSNBC, only for the show to be cancelled after just five episodes. Baldwin said he only watched the network “very sporadically” before starting there, and noticed an immediate problem with everybody that worked there: “None of them are funny, although that doesn’t prevent them from trying to be.” Oh, and they’re all “full of shit”.
“My ‘career’ as a talk-show host started with a perfectly simple ambition. In my WNYC podcast, ‘Here’s the Thing’, I wanted to conduct interviews based on appreciation of my guests and their work. To think that something as uncomplicated and innocent as that led to the MSNBC debacle is still surreal to me,” said Baldwin.
“[Phil Griffin, head of NBC] said that we needed to change it up… The first name they came up with was Rob Lowe. They said, Rob Lowe’s going to be in the building. Do you want to interview Rob? I said, ‘Not particularly.’ And they looked at me like, You really don’t get it. I think they thought, You should have just said yes, simply to play the game. I should have simply said, ‘Sure, bring in Rob Lowe.'”
The answer is always Rob Lowe.
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On Orphans and Shia:
Remember that weird email back-and-forth between Baldwin and Shia LaBeouf as they prepared for the Broadway production, Orphans? Baldwin shed some more light on that, and it’s quite hilarious:
“Getting back onstage seemed like a good idea,” began Baldwin. “Then Shia LaBeouf showed up. I’d heard from other people that he was potentially very difficult to work with, but I always ignore that because people say the same thing about me.
“There was friction between us from the beginning… One day he attacked me in front of everyone. He said, ‘You’re slowing me down, and you don’t know your lines. And if you don’t say your lines, I’m just going to keep saying my lines.’ We all sat, frozen. I snorted a bit, and, turning to him in front of the whole cast, I asked, ‘If I don’t say my words fast enough, you’re going to just say your next line?’ I said. ‘You realise the lines are written in a certain order?’ He just glared at me.”
Don’t you wish there was video?
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On “fucked up” ‘Murica:
While Baldwin still holds a soft spot for New York, he’s hinted at a move back to L.A., noting that Manhattan “has changed”.
“I just can’t live in New York anymore,” he said. “Everything I hated about L.A. I’m beginning to crave. L.A. is a place where you live behind a gate, you get in a car, your interaction with the public is minimal. I used to hate that. But New York has changed. Manhattan is like Beverly Hills. And the soul of New York has moved to Brooklyn, where everything new and exciting seems to be.”
And as for America as a whole? “[It’s] more fucked up now than it’s ever been,” says Baldwin. He also admits that he “had dreams of running for office at some point in the next five years”, but last year’s tabloid shenanigans have probably put an end to that. You missed out, America. Still, there’s hope in Trump.
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On his monumentally long shit list:
In the lengthy article, Baldwin also found the time to address a few media personalities directly. Here’s a brief breakdown:
TMZ’s Harvey Levin: “Cretinous barnacle.”
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow: “Phony”; “the ultimate wonk/dweeb.”
MSNBC producer Jonathan Larsen: “Didn’t get me or the show, and didn’t want to be there.”
Shia LaBeouf: “Seems to carry with him, to put it mildly, a jailhouse mentality wherever he goes.”
Anderson Cooper (who Baldwin called a “toxic little queen“): “I didn’t feel bad about the incident… He lied.”
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I don’t know about you but I’m a little hesitant to bid Alec Baldwin farewell: “‘til next time” may be more appropriate. You never know, he might do a Shia and come out of retirement.