Alec Baldwin may be funny...

[feldspar]

...but I don't think I can ever watch him and laugh again.

Check out the comments he made to his daughter in a voice mail which was leaked to the tabs this week:

The festering bad blood between movie-star exes Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger erupted Thursday when an angry phone message from Baldwin to his daughter was made public. On the recording, Baldwin can be heard berating his 11-year-old, Ireland, "You are a rude, thoughtless little pig."

"You don't have the brains or the decency as a human being," he says, apparently upset that she did not answer her phone for a planned call.

"I don't give a damn that you're 12 years old, or 11 years old, or that you're a child, or that your mother is a thoughtless pain in the a** who doesn't care about what you do as far as I'm concerned. You have humiliated me for the last time with this phone."

Wow.

Link

[Bostondevil]

this just begs the question, who leaked the voice mail? And why?

[JasonEvans]

He is in the middle of a brutal 6-year-long divorce battle with Kim Basinger, a battle in which she has leaked all kinds of horrible things about him to the media. Some of the stuff she has said has been discredited, some remains unproven but unrefuted. Still, they clearly hate each other with a passion. I may be wrong, but I believe that Basinger violated a court order in leaking this tape.

Now, none of that excuses his conduct in making the comments on that phone call but it bears mention that we do not know the context here. Maybe he had gotten a foul-mouthed message from Kim or, worse still, from his daughter. Maybe this was the 15th time his daughter had blown off their scheduled phone conversation and he was mad/worried that Basinger was poisoning his daughter against him. Maybe he was just having a bad day.

I am the parent of 2 wonderful boys who are mostly really good kids but I know I have yelled at them in a way that I later regretted -- many times. Now, I've never used language like Alec Baldwin did, but I bet there are parents out there who have. It is not like he was threatening to beat her or he was dropping F-bombs left and right.

Regardless, I think his response to the whole thing really speaks volumes. Here is his statement:

"In the best interest of the child, Alec will do what (Kim Basinger) is pathologically incapable of doing…keeping his mouth shut and obeying the court order. The mother and her lawyer leaked this sealed material in violation of a court order. Although Alec acknowledges that he should have used different language in parenting his child, everyone who knows him privately knows what he has been put through for the past six years."

[feldspar]

It also struck me that he's not really quite certain how old his daughter is.



I'm not taking sides here, just found it interesting...and sad.

[Jfrosh]

I think we have all said things we regret when talking to our children, but there is no excuse for the bullying that he did. He is angry at his ex, and had a temper tantrum, but you should never, ever talk to a child that way.

That being said:
I'll still laugh every time I see the "Schwetty Balls" skit.

[Bostondevil]

In some ways, I can't believe I'm defending this but, well, how much time have you spent around 11 year old girls? That's 6th grade. Certainly old enough for the mean girl in them to start coming out. I've certainly seen a lot of rude, thoughtless, piggish behavior out of some of them. And if they aren't held in check by a parent, watch out.

To me, it seems like a very frustrated father who knows if he isn't allowed significant say in how his daughter is being raised, and soon, well, he's got a right to be angry. If she treats her own father with such disrespect, and that's certainly implied in the message, she probably treats everyone with an element of disrespect.

As an aside, two of my sons birthdays are in May. I've already started thinking of them as 10 and 7 even though for a couple more weeks they are in fact 9 and 6.

[tux]

Oh no! Is Alec Baldwin going to have to get fired from 30 Rock now. Maybe Don Imus can fill in as Jack Donaghy.

Kidding aside (and on a slightly different note), this has been a rough couple of weeks for NBC, especially for Steve Capus...

[BlueDiablo]

I wonder if he also told her, "Put down that Kool-Aid! Kool-Aid is for closers!"

'Cause that would have been awesome.

[tecumseh]

Listen to the tape again, it is all about Alec Baldwin. He is crying about the tremendous hardship of him the great, Alec Baldwin, having to stop what he is doing and calling someone and that person is not there to answer the phone and this makes him the great Alec Baldwin look bad.

Then he is trying to bully an 11yr old girl. This probably works for all the other unfortunate people who have to deal with him but surely this will backfire and drive his daughter closer to his ex.

[JasonEvans]

Listen to the tape again, it is all about Alec Baldwin. He is crying about the tremendous hardship of him the great, Alec Baldwin, having to stop what he is doing and calling someone and that person is not there to answer the phone and this makes him the great Alec Baldwin look bad.

Do yiou have kids? How old are they? He sounded like a frustrated father to me, not a guy who is all about himself. Yeah, his language went over the line but I'd bet that most parents have been at that level of frustration with their kids some time.

I would also add that I bet a fair amount of his anger was directed at Kim Bassinger (who may actually be insane) but he was venting it on the daughter. He probably thought Kim was the person keeping his daughter from talking with him.

I know some folks who run with the stars in Hollywood and the consensus out there is that Kim is just a lunatic and Alec is caught up in a nearly impossible situation.

-Jason "divorce celebrity style is uuugly!" EVans

[feldspar]

Do yiou have kids? How old are they?

What does that have to do with anything?

You just don't speak that way to children. I don't care how old they are or how rudely they behave.

It's verbal abuse, plain and simple.

[tecumseh]

I do have three teenagers at home with me. I listened to it with two of them and their mother and we all both sort of laughed and were appalled by it. It is verbal abuse and is also clear Alec Baldwin has an EGO the size of Jupiter.

He is yelling at an eleven year old about how he is embarressed and humiliated because she is not there to answer the phone and that it is such a hardship for him to make these phone calls. PLEASE he is the star on the set and some lacky hands him a cellphone and no one answers so he throws a tantrum and calls his daughter a pig and when his daughter ends up hating him it must be Kim's fault.

[Bostondevil]

He is yelling at an eleven year old . . .

We don't know a lot of things about this conversation. We don't know who determines the times of the phone calls. We don't know if Kim Basinger screens calls for her daughter, it may very well be that the daughter never heard the voice mail, until it was made it public. We don't know how much access to his daughter has been controlled over the years. We don't know what kinds of things are being said to the girl by her own mother. We don't know how many times something like this has happened before. We do know that somebody leaked this message to the public. It's not very hard to figure out who. IMHO making it public is the worse sin in this situation.

I've listened to it once now. I still think it sounds like a desperate father at the end of his rope.

[tecumseh]

Boston Devil.
I agree I cannot imagine that making this public can serve the child's best interests.
I also cannot imagine how this verbal attack on this child can serve her interests (or Alec Baldwin's). I do feel that there is any context in which this verbal abuse on an 11 yr old is appropriate. We all have frustrations to deal with.

[JasonEvans]

So, to sum up--

There is total agreement that talking to your child like this is probably not cool. Some of us feel that there may be some context missing which makes it a little more understandable. This means we think Baldwin was somewhere between a really bad guy and someone who exhibited poor judgement and anger management.

But, there is also total agreement that leaking it to the public was a horrible thing to do. If we think Baldwin acted poorly, I think most of us feel Basinger was far, far worse when she leaked this.

-Jason

[Duvall]

I wonder if he also told her, "Put down that Kool-Aid! Kool-Aid is for closers!"

"Nice guy?[1] I don't give a #%$&. Good father? $&*% you! Go home and play with your kids."

Baldwin is killing it on 30 Rock - I don't really care if he's a bad parent.

[1]Warning: Link contains foul language.[2]
[2]But you already know that, right?[3]
[3]And let's face it - if you're a Duke basketball fan, how sensitive can you be?

[The Gordog]

What does that have to do with anything?

You just don't speak that way to children. I don't care how old they are or how rudely they behave.

It's verbal abuse, plain and simple.

I have to say I disagree. Over the line? Yes. Would I ever talk that way? I hope not. But there are far worse things a parent could say.

The fact is she was not just late for a phone call, she was suppossed to be picked up by Baldwin at that time and she had her phone turned off. If you are my 11 or 12 year old daughter you have your phone on *At All Times* if you are out of my house. That is the reality in these dangerous times.

[feldspar]

But there are far worse things a parent could say.

Well, if we're using that standard, there are far worse things that a child molester can do than just touching a child inappropriately over their clothes. There are far worse things that a spouse abuser can do than pushing his wife down the stairs. There are far worse things a mugger can do than stabbing his victim in the arm.

Just because there are far worse things that could have been done does not mean this is not verbal and emotional abuse.

I understand there are extenuating circumstances, most of which we are unaware of. I understand that, from what we can tell, Kim B. is a royal b**tch. None of that excuses the words that he used and the way he chose to use them.

I have to say, I'm surprised at the level of "oh, it's not that bad" and "we've all lost our temper" discussion that I'm hearing regarding this situation, especially from those who have kids.

[Bostondevil]

I for one don't throw it around lightly and certainly not in situations where I'm not even close to knowing all the facts. Also, I would hate to have the absolute worst things I've ever said to my children typed up and handed to me. I'll even bet that if we typed up the absolute worst things any of us have said to a loved one, very few of us would be clear of criticism, particularly from this crowd. We all say things we shouldn't. Accusing others of being abusers might even be in that category.

From another discussion I happened across about the Baldwin incident, later in the same phone call he apologizes and says that if this problem needs to be dealt with face to face he will fly out there immediately to deal with it. Why doesn't that part of the conversation get any press?

[tecumseh]

Feldspar, even without knowing all the "facts" there is no context in which this is an acceptable way to speak to an 11 yr old. period.

Boston Devil ..who says this is Alec Baldwin at his worst? I mean if he gets that upset with an 11 yr old for not having the phone switched on how does he react when she does something truely bad? I do not think he was to pick her up it sounds like he is out of town.

My 15 yr old never carries a cellphone feels it invades his privacy and I think he is probably right.