Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: Alec Baldwin lost his temper this week, went on a profane tirade, threatened violence, then shut down his Twitter account.
We’ve been watching variations on this routine for a while now. The time the star lashed out at a flight attendant who told him to turn off his phone. The times he allegedly shoved a photographer and hurled epithets at another, hit one reporter with his bike and told another he wanted to choke her. The leaked voice messages in which he called his young daughter a “thoughtless little pig.”
It’s the kind of thing that could ruin a different celebrity. But while Baldwin’s latest tantrum Thursday night raised more eyebrows than usual — for aiming homophobic slurs (“toxic little queen”) at a tabloid reporter who erroneously claimed the actor’s wife tweeted during James Gandolfini’s funeral — he probably won’t lose any job offers or A-list invitations.
He never does. Why is that?
We asked Hilary Rosen, the Washington media strategist who has been friends with Baldwin since college. “What he said was disgusting,” she told us. “But I think he has a deeper reservoir of good will among folks because he’s been a progressive ally and fighter for progressive causes for years, and that’s the genuine side of him.”
