Alec Baldwin Said Something Borderline Criminal About ‘TMZ’s Harvey Levin

Alec Baldwin hates the paparazzi. There’s no denying that. You can only get into so many altercations with photographers and say what he said about TMZ‘s Harvey Levin before suspicion becomes fact.

To be fair, it is not even a claim he is denying. But the words revealed in a recent piece from the New Yorker have some wondering if Alec Baldwin will be subject to the same Secret Service-level scrutiny that someone threatening the President of the United States might experience.

Just how awful is it?

Bad. Really bad. But don’t take that at face value. Here is the exact quote courtesy of Esquire.

“There was a time when my greatest wish was to stab Harvey Levin with a rusty implement and watch his entrails go running down my forearm, in some Macbethian stance,” Alec Baldwin said. “I wanted him to die in my arms, while looking into my eyes, and I wanted to say to him, ‘Oh, Harvey, you thoughtless little pig.’ He is a festering boil on the anus of American media.”

Ouch.

The “festering boil on the anus of American media” line sounds unpleasant but is at least non-threatening in nature. The rest of it, on the other hand, could very well be construed as terroristic threat.

While that is unlikely the intent for which it was given — it’s more likely that the star of TV and film was just being Alec Baldwin — it is questionable whether Baldwin’s descriptiveness is protected by the right to free speech.

A passing comment like “I wouldn’t shed one tear if that guy got hit by a bus” or “I’d like to get my hands on him” can be sloughed off, but disemboweling someone and even thinking of what you would say to him as he looks into your eyes?

You’ve really thought this out, Mr. Baldwin, and there is something scary about that.

Of course, Alec Baldwin hates TMZ and Harvey Levin in particular because he has been the subject of the publication’s reporting in the past. The news site once called out the actor for a homophobic rant in which he called a male reporter critical of his wife a “toxic little queen.”

TMZ noted that the reporter had accused her of tweeting recipes during James Gandolfini’s funeral.

Baldwin also said he would “put my foot up” the reporter’s, George Stark’s, “a** but you’d dig it too much.”

TMZ wondered how people could continually want to work with Alec Baldwin, who “clearly hates gay people” while publicly crucifying Paula Deen for past “racially insensitive remarks” toward black people.

The website concluded that Baldwin was “a terrible person.”

Beyond that, TMZ also took Alec Baldwin to task in 2007 for unleashing a fury of hatred on his then-11-year-old daughter Ireland. The website obtained the full recording and made it available on their website.

In the two-minute call, Baldwin derided Ireland for not turning on her phone when he tried to call her, telling her he was going to “straighten her a** out” and added that she was a “rude, thoughtless little pig.”

According to Esquire, it is believed that Levin uses TMZ to crusade against celebrities because of “inequalities” that he sees between the things they “get away with” compared to an average person, noting that Levin’s father owned a liquor store “and was routinely targeted by police for selling to minors.”

Meanwhile, “nightclubs catering to underage celebrities flouted the law and were never brought to justice,” Esquire continued, pointing to a New Yorker quote from Lewis D’Vorkin, a former AOL executive: “Harvey believed that every celebrity was fake, and that it was his job to expose that.”

While that may be the case, you can’t get much more brutally honest than what Alec Baldwin just did. But do you think he went too far with his remarks? Sound off in the comments section.

[Image via PAN Photo Agency / Shutterstock.com]