The Hilaria Baldwin heritage scandal continues. Only this time, it is at the behest of her husband Alec Baldwin. The Saturday Night Live star deleted his Twitter account again on Thursday following backlash from his tweet that reignited the debate about cultural accents. Consequently, he also dragged The Crown actress Gillian Anderson into it.
On Instagram, Alec Baldwin posted an almost 10-minute-long video explaining the lead up to his decision to quit Twitter for good. Apparently, Baldwin shared a link on Twitter about how Gillian Anderson frequently switches between an American and British accent, captioning it as, “Switching accents? That sounds…fascinating.” It was a nod to the situation surrounding his wife, who is accused of faking a Spanish accent, and the Twitterverse was not having it. Baldwin had this to say on the matter:
I find that of course on Twitter, which is where all the assholes in the United States and beyond go to get their advanced degrees and assholiness, that Twitter is just a place ... You can't say anything dark enough to describe a lot of the crowd on Twitter. Twitter is a lot of haters. Twitter is one-third interesting posts, photography, things like that. One-third tedious, uninteresting nonsense. Then it's just one-third or more just abject hatred and malice and unpleasantness.
The reaction online to Alec Baldwin's seeming dig at Gillian Anderson, who played Margaret Thatcher on The Crown, was huge to say the least. Many are of the opinion that Anderson’s fanbase single-handedly ran Baldwin off the site. Anderson herself hasn't responded to the scandal on social media.
Alec Baldwin wanted to make clear in his Instagram video, however, that the tweet was not intended as a dig at Gillian Anderson, but more so an attempt at irony, saying,
Of course, you can't do any irony on Twitter. You can't do any irony in the United States because the United States is such an uptight, stressed out place. Such an unpleasant place right now. But the person I was referring to is someone I'm a huge fan of. Huge, huge fan of. The comment was meant to illustrate the point that I find the multicultural expressions of anyone — whatever country language, music, food, clothing, art — whatever of those expressions are important you, that's your business.
In other words, Alec Baldwin thought it was hypocritical how others may get a cultural pass versus how his wife Hilaria was dragged through the coals. She was accused online of cultural appropriation. She admitted at the time that she was born in Boston but grew up bilingual and raises their six children the same way.
Regardless, Alec Baldwin should know that the Internet comes for everyone. Especially if you're going to bring up Golden Globe-winner/lord and savior Gillian Anderson, if you ask me.
