Alec Baldwin appeared on PBS News Hour on Friday talking about sexism, misogyny, and rape culture in the wake of the Weinstein sexual assault and harassment allegations, as well as those that have taken down other powerful men in Hollywood in the subsequent weeks—including director James Toback, who Baldwin had worked with in the past. His comments during his interview addressing those issues drew accusations of victim-blaming and mansplaining from more than a few notable women, who came for him on Twitter. It didn’t take long, then, for him to get embroiled in a tussle on the platform—using his foundation’s account, since he shut down his personal account—with actress and vocal Weinstein accuser Asia Argento, as well as her boyfriend, celebrity chef/foodie Anthony Bourdain.
The key part of his interview that women took issue with was when he appeared to criticize women taking settlements in exchange for their silence about acts of sexual assault and harassment. “What happened was that Rose McGowan took a payment of $100,000 and settled her case with him, and it was for Rose McGowan to prosecute that case,” he said. “When women take money and are silenced by that money, even though they took the money and were silenced because they were told, beyond the money, it was the right thing for them to do, keep quiet, don’t make too many waves, it is going to hurt your career. When they do it nonetheless, does it set back the cause of change?”
Not great, as women, including Argento, pointed out.
Baldwin suspended his Twitter on Saturday around midday, “for a period of and in the current climate,” with the note that “It was never my intention, in my public statements, to ‘blame the victim’ in the many sexual assault cases that have emerged recently … my goal is to do better in all things related to gender equality.”
And that’s when things started to kick off. Argento bid him a not-so-fond farewell:
Apparently Baldwin didn’t want to leave that unanswered, so he began tweeting from the Alec Baldwin Foundation page, which, um…isn’t a good look for a nonprofit.
https://twitter.com/ABFalecbaldwin/status/926886858533031936
Bourdain chimed in to stick up for his partner, and quickly followed it up with a casted stone of his own:
Baldwin then responded with a now-deleted tweet that Bourdain was careful to screencap and later posted.
Argento came back for it, but @ABFoundation had blocked her.
Baldwin wasn’t done yet, though—a few minutes later, he tweeted again at Bourdain:
https://twitter.com/ABFalecbaldwin/status/926986346085994496
Things kinda fizzed out (at least in our non-DM view) after that, but on Sunday morning, Alec Baldwin’s foundation retweeted a tweet of Rose McGowan’s—a highly vocal figure in the Weinstein fallout—that is…interesting.
So, not sure entirely what is happening, but given the rest of the day’s tweets, someone at his organization seems to have wrested control back of the account—with a dash of sass thrown in there. Never a dull moment on Twitter these days!
Related Stories:
–Alec Baldwin’s Trump Called Puerto Rico Mayor a ‘Nasty Woman’ on SNL
–Alec Baldwin Has Left the Twitterverse—This Time For Good!
–These Are the Women Who Have Accused Harvey Weinstein of Sexual Harassment or Assault