Alec Insults Shia LaBeouf, Everyone

This past year has been a bad one for Alec Baldwin, says Alec Baldwin. In a New York Magazine interview, Baldwin insists that he's not homophobic — a charge brought against him after a run-in with a photographer — but, likely, will only manage to undermine his argument in the process. Why? Mostly because, while insisting in the article's opening paragraphs that he's a champion for gay causes, he recalls a time he met with a member of the LGBT community who he describes as "an F-to-M tranny."

Of course, it's offensive terminology for anyone within the LGBT community. But it's not the only thing working against the 30 Rock actor in the article. Not only does it come off as bitter and angry (he equates his struggles throughout the year to "Conan O'Brien treatment"), but it manages to insult seemingly every person Baldwin has come in contact with over the course of 2013. (Hence, the parody New York Mag cover pictured below making the rounds with the headline, "Everyone's Wrong But Me." The real cover line? "I Give Up, by Alec Baldwin.") First, he (admittedly rightly) attacks the over-eager media, which has made a practice of harassing the actor who is prone to headline-worthy freak-outs when approached:

Photographers today get right up in your face, my wife’s, my baby’s. They are baiting you ... I’m self-aware enough to know that I am to blame for some of this. I definitely should not have reacted the way I did in some of these situations ... But—I’m sorry, I can’t let go of this—do people really, really believe that, when I shouted at that guy, I called him a “faggot” on-camera? Do you honestly believe I would give someone like TMZ’s Harvey Levin, of all people, another club to beat me with?

(Baldwin claims he merely called the photographer "cocksucking motherf**ker.")

Then, the actor moves onto Shia LaBeouf, who Baldwin had a well-publicized fight with on the set of Orphans, a Broadway play that eventually let go of LaBeouf following a fight with the 30 Rock star. Baldwin claims in the New York Magazine article that LaBeouf, with his "jailhouse mentality," picked a fight with him over knowing his lines.

We all sat, frozen. I snorted a bit, and, turning to him in front of the whole cast, I asked, “If I don’t say my words fast enough, you’re going to just say your next line?” I said. “You realize the lines are written in a certain order?” He just glared at me. So I asked the company to break. And I took the stage manager, with Sullivan, to another room, and I said one of us is going to go. I said, “I’ll tell you what, I’ll go.” I said don’t fire the kid, I’ll quit. They said no, no, no, no, and they fired him. And I think he was shocked. He had that card, that card you get when you make films that make a lot of money that gives you a certain kind of entitlement. I think he was surprised that it didn’t work in the theater. There’s a way I could have done things differently. I know that. If I offended anyone along the way, I do apologize. But the solution for me now is: I’ve lived this for 30 years, I’m done with it.

Next up? Director Dan Sullivan.

But firing LaBeouf didn’t help things. Sullivan played both sides. In emails, he coddled Shia. To me, he spoke differently. I was working with an older, more enervated Sullivan, who didn’t have the energy for any of this. I don’t think Sullivan liked the play—I don’t think he liked me. Sullivan agreed to do something that, once he realized what it was, he had lost interest in it.

And then Phil Griffin, the head of MSNBC, the network that eventually fired Alec Baldwin from his show, Up Late, after the photographer controversy.

Immediately prior to this, I’d go see Phil and I’d say, “What are the ratings?” If I had 15 meetings with Phil Griffin, 5 of them were after the show, with me saying, “What do you make of these ratings?” He’d say, “Don’t worry. It takes time.” (We beat Cooper two of three Fridays at ten.) Although he appeared to have some buyer’s remorse, he told me to hang in there. After the TMZ event, he said, “Don’t worry. I have to suspend you. But this will blow over.” I have all the emails to prove it. And then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, MSNBC said, “You’re fired.”

Attacking TMZ's Harvey Levin, who Baldwin charges with manipulating the story and putting the homophobic f-word in his mouth, helps the actor's cause:

Harvey Levin exists in his own universe. He’s this kind of cretinous barnacle on the press. Levin told the world that that muffled sound on the video—Levin wanted everyone to know he knows what it is. You don’t know, and I don’t know, but Levin knows, and he tells the world that it’s “faggot.” I get angry, and I’ve said all sorts of things in anger, but I’d never use that word. Levin has so little regard for the truth, which is odd, knowing he was once a legal correspondent for the CBS affiliate in L.A.

His attack on the openly gay Anderson Cooper, however, does not.

I ended up attacking a reporter who wrote in the Daily Mail online that my wife was tweeting from Jimmy’s funeral. He was wrong—in fact, at a later time, she had retweeted items whose original time code matched the time of the funeral. In my rage, however, I called him a “toxic little queen,” and, thus, Anderson Cooper, the self-appointed Jack Valenti of gay media culture, suggested I should be “vilified,” in his words.

Ultimately, though, Baldwin thinks the fault lies in his beloved city itself, which is where the entire interview leads. It's unclear as to why Baldwin agreed to speak with the media he hates so much, but his intentions seem to align with his famous declaratory statements about leaving for Canada should George W. Bush get elected in 2000: He's ready to leave his hometown.

Broadway has changed, by my lights. The TV networks, too. New York has changed. Even the U.S., which is so preposterously judgmental now. The heart, the arteries of the country are now clogged with hate ... I think America’s more fucked up now than it’s ever been. People are angry that in the game of musical chairs that is the U.S. economy, there are less seats at the table when the music stops. And at every recession, the music is stopping.

That said, he still seems intent on staying in the United States.

I probably have to move out of New York. I just can’t live in New York anymore. Everything I hated about L.A. I’m beginning to crave. L.A. is a place where you live behind a gate, you get in a car, your interaction with the public is minimal. I used to hate that. But New York has changed.

Nearly 5,500 words later, though, Baldwin does apologize for those he hurt with his words.

I know that. If I offended anyone along the way, I do apologize. But the solution for me now is: I’ve lived this for 30 years, I’m done with it.

Based on how many people he attacked in this article, we sincerely doubt it.