Alec Baldwin: 'Everywhere I go, black people go crazy'


Alec Baldwin doesn't "want to get this wrong," but he has a few mildly offensive things to say.
The longtime actor wants men exposed by #MeToo "punished," but also fears "that this is a fire that needs constant kindling," he tells The Hollywood Reporter. He says "everywhere I go, black people go crazy," though he's "not going to paint every African-American person with the same brush." And he's also worried you'll take all that the wrong way.
Baldwin is "perpetually at a low boil," as The Hollywood Reporter puts it, and has repeatedly turned full steam against President Trump over the past few years. He's notably kept returning to play the president on Saturday Night Live, a role that's apparently earned him a very specific fan base:
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Ever since I played Trump, black people love me. They love me. Everywhere I go, black people go crazy. I think it's because they're most afraid of Trump. I'm not going to paint every African-American person with the same brush, but a significant number of them are sitting there going, 'This is going to be bad for black folks.' [Baldwin, via The Hollywood Reporter]
Of course, he premised all of this by saying "I don't know how to say this and I don't want to get it wrong either." But alas, Twitter lit up with accusations that he did, in fact, get it wrong.
You can read more about his views at The Hollywood Reporter.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.
-
August 23 editorial cartoons
Cartoons Saturday's political cartoons include deficit dimness, steamroller-in-chief, and more
-
5 museum-grade cartoons about Trump's Smithsonian purge
Cartoons Artists take on institutional rebranding, exhibit interpretation, and more
-
Settling the West Bank: a death knell for a Palestine state?
In the Spotlight The reality on the ground is that the annexation of the West Bank is all but a done deal
-
Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclub
Speed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
-
Trump says Smithsonian too focused on slavery's ills
Speed Read The president would prefer the museum to highlight 'success,' 'brightness' and 'the future'
-
Trump to host Kennedy Honors for Kiss, Stallone
Speed Read Actor Sylvester Stallone and the glam-rock band Kiss were among those named as this year's inductees
-
White House seeks to bend Smithsonian to Trump's view
Speed Read The Smithsonian Institution's 21 museums are under review to ensure their content aligns with the president's interpretation of American history
-
Charlamagne Tha God irks Trump with Epstein talk
Speed Read The radio host said the Jeffrey Epstein scandal could help 'traditional conservatives' take back the Republican Party
-
CBS cancels Colbert's 'Late Show'
Speed Read 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' is ending next year
-
Shakespeare not an absent spouse, study proposes
speed read A letter fragment suggests that the Shakespeares lived together all along, says scholar Matthew Steggle
-
New Mexico to investigate death of Gene Hackman, wife
speed read The Oscar-winning actor and his wife Betsy Arakawa were found dead in their home with no signs of foul play