Alec Baldwin Says Goodbye To Public Life, Threatens To Bolt New York
Hot-headed actor Alec Baldwin is apparently no longer in a New York state of mind.
He claims he is likely to move to Los Angeles with his wife and baby daughter in part because of “predatory photographers and predatory videographers” that have changed public life.
In November, MSNBC canceled Baldwin’s Up Late talk show after he allegedly shouted homophobic slurs at a photographer outside his Manhattan apartment. Among other run-ins with the media, Baldwin — a liberal/progressive who insists he’s a big gay rights supporter — also used a homophobic slur to describe a Daily Mail reporter who he was upset with over a story about his wife Hilaria.
In a long interview that is supposedly the last time he will talk about his personal life in the media, the actor had this to say about his potential escape from New York:
I probably have to move out of New York. I just can’t live in New York anymore. 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. I have to accept that. I want my newest child to have as normal and decent a life as I can provide. New York doesn’t seem the place for that anymore.”
In emphatically pushing back against the perception that he is anti-gay, Baldwin noted that “Look, I work in show business. I am awash in gay people, as colleagues and as friends.”
Baldwin noted that he now loathes and despises the media, including Fox News which he deemed “Hate Incorporated.” But most of his criticism centered on the liberal network MSNBC, his former employer, which reportedly terminated his contract by invoking a morals clause.
Baldwin claimed that MSNBC president Phil Griffin was more concerned about the perks of his job rather than the content broadcast over the network. As far as the speculation that MSNBC host Rachel Maddow was responsible for convincing Griffin to fire him, Baldwin asserted that “I think Rachel Maddow is quite good at what she does. I also think she’s a phony who doesn’t have the same passion for the truth off-camera that she seems to have on the air.” About ratings-challenged MSNBC generally, he said that “The problem with everybody on MSNBC is none of them are funny, although that doesn’t prevent them from trying to be.”
In the interview, Baldwin also admitted to political aspirations and actually departed from liberal orthodoxy by criticizing labor unions: “In the pyramid of decision-making in New York City politics, rich people come first, unions second, and rank-and-file New Yorkers come dead last. I wanted to change that. I wanted to find a way to lower the cost of the city government and thus reduce New York’s shameful tax burden.”
Summing up, Baldwin declared that “It’s good-bye to public life in the way that you try to communicate with an audience playfully like we’re friends, beyond the work you are actually paid for.”
Baldwin previously feuded with his generally ideological opposite Sean Hannity, who has also threatened to leave New York for economic rather than privacy reasons.
Do you think Alec Baldwin will move from New York to Hollywood, and if so, do you care?
[Image credit: MSNBC]
