Alec Baldwin Makes the Wrong Call
Actor Berates His Daughter In Voice Mail Leaked to Web

By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 21, 2007

All parents get angry at their children, but arguments usually remain in the household. If you're Alec Baldwin and you call your 11-year-old daughter a "rude little pig" on voice mail, however, you no longer can expect your outburst to remain in the family.

Baldwin is the latest celebrity to learn the hard lessons of an instantaneous digital world that can turn a private call into a public embarrassment in a matter of days.

The actor is engaged in a custody battle with his former wife, Academy Award-winning actress Kim Basinger, over their 11-year-old daughter, Ireland, following a 2002 divorce that spurred nasty name-calling between the two actors.

On April 11 from New York, Baldwin called his daughter in Los Angeles at an arranged time but found that her phone was turned off. He left a profanity-laced, 2-minute-12-second message, berating her for not answering the phone.

"You don't have the brains or decency as a human being," yells Baldwin, who narrates the beloved "Thomas the Tank Engine" animated children's films. "I don't give a damn that you're 12 years old or 11 years old or a child or your mother is a thoughtless pain . . . who doesn't care what you do as far as I'm concerned!"

A recording of the phone call hit the Internet on Thursday afternoon when it was posted on celebrity news site TMZ.com, which has broken nearly every major star-gone-bad story of the past year, from Mel Gibson's drunken anti-Semitic tirade to the grisly details of Anna Nicole Smith's death. By Friday morning, it was Topic A on major talk shows. Baldwin is a noted political liberal, and his voice mail showed up on Rush Limbaugh's program yesterday as the host discoursed on custody battles. Even the hosts on ESPN Radio played the call and devoted extensive airtime to it.

TMZ will not disclose how it got the taped phone call, which spurred Baldwin's lawyer to file a declaration in Los Angeles Superior Court yesterday asking the court to force TMZ to reveal the identity of the source. "If [TMZ] had a tape-recorded message between [Baldwin] and the minor child, it had to have originated from [Basinger] or her employees, agents or attorneys," the filing reads.

Through her publicist, Basinger would say only: "The voice mail speaks for itself."

Aside from its titillation value, Baldwin's rant already has had legal consequences. As a result of the call being made public, a Los Angeles judge has temporarily suspended Baldwin's visitation rights at least until a previously scheduled May 4 custody hearing.

Baldwin apologized yesterday in a statement on his Web site:

"I'm sorry, as everyone who knows me is aware, for losing my temper with my child. I have been driven to the edge by parental alienation for many years now."

Hit Entertainment Ltd., which produces the "Thomas the Tank Engine" movies, did not return a call for comment.

Baldwin is a critically acclaimed actor who has morphed from a handsome leading man into a grizzled and sometimes puffy character actor, equally at home spouting a foul-mouthed soliloquy in the 1992 David Mamet film "Glengarry Glen Ross," and doing self-effacing comic turns on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" and current hit "30 Rock." Baldwin's performance as a network executive in the Thursday night comedy netted him a Golden Globe in January. NBC referred calls to Baldwin's publicist.

The phone call to his daughter mirrors in tone Baldwin's acclaimed scene in "Glengarry Glen Ross," in which he lambastes under-performing real estate salesmen.

"We're adding a little something to this month's sales contest," says Baldwin's character. "As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anyone want to see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired. You get the picture? You're laughing now?"

Baldwin joins former sportscaster and "The Insider" host Pat O'Brien and others -- celebrities and regular folk -- whose embarrassing voice-mail messages have made it into public view. O'Brien entered rehab for alcohol abuse in 2005 after a series of obscene and sexually suggestive messages he left on a female friend's phone were leaked to the Internet.

Even former radio host Don Imus found himself in a boat similar to Baldwin's. Though Imus's racial slurs were made to an audience of millions, the controversy that led to his firing was fanned by the MSNBC video clip of his comments seen widely on YouTube and other Web sites. Like Baldwin's phone call, what Imus said was irrefutable and instantly uploadable to a globally wired audience that seemingly cannot get enough of bad stuff about celebrities.

The last words heard at the end of Baldwin's voice mail foreshadow the scandal to come, it turns out. A computerized voice can be heard saying: "To replay this message . . . "

Staff writer Korin Miller contributed to this report.