Few people have more insight into actor Alec Baldwin than his ex-wife, Kim Basinger. The 68-year-old actress appeared on a recent episode of Jada Pinkett Smith’s “Red Table Talk” to discuss her interactions with Baldwin and how they didn’t agree on co-parenting.
Basinger referred to her divorce as “heavy-duty” and “very out loud,” the Daily Mail reported. She and Baldwin were married for close to ten years, from 1993 until 2002. The two had a daughter, Ireland Basinger, who also appeared on “Red Table Talk” to discuss her father.
“Parenting can be difficult, and Ireland having the anxiety issues that she’s had, was that a difficult process with Alec, or were you guys able to kind of see eye to eye on how to handle it?” Smith asked.
“Eye to eye?” Basinger replied with a smirk. “No. No, that was not … Alec’s a funny one. We’re all fine and we all get along, whatever. But he’s been … he’s a challenge.”
“We’ve had our challenges,” the “L.A. Confidential” actress continued. “And I don’t think Alec was emotionally or mentally available for that kind of talk. Alec, you know, operates in a very different way in his life.”
Ireland jumped in, explaining how her father’s methods for managing stress are different from other people’s.
“He deals with anxiety greatly, but he’s someone who grew up in a family that would suppress that as well, or tell him he’s weak for feeling that way,” the 26-year-old model explained.
“There’s things I would go to my father for, but if I ever even tried to have this conversation in any way with him, I don’t think he would be able to really absorb any of it,” Ireland continued.
“He can’t really sympathize as much with it, but it’s not his fault, and he’s gotten way better. I mean, I think he really suppressed his anxiety, like up until pretty recently. He’s really been dealing with things that kind of have been thrown at him. He’s been forced to finally deal with these things,” she concluded.
Ireland was likely referring to the fatal shooting on the set of the movie “Rust” when Baldwin was holding a prop gun which discharged, striking and killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza. The fallout from the incident, for which Baldwin takes no blame, has been extreme.
The Daily Mail reported that Basinger and Baldwin split because of his “short temper and allegedly uncontrollable anger,” according to her father. The audio of a voicemail he left for Ireland, who was at the time a young child, became public and caused an absolute scandal for the “30 Rock” actor.
Because Ireland did not answer the phone at the appointed time, Baldwin berated her and called her a “rude little pig” in the recorded message.