Why did Alec Baldwin deactivate Twitter? Actor slams 'a**holes' after shading Gillian Anderson's 'accents'
Actor Alec Baldwin has quit Twitter after being criticized for a comment he made about Gillian Anderson's accents. Baldwin's comments come shortly after his wife, Hilaria Baldwin, was criticized for using what social media users called a "fake Spanish accent". Baldwin then took to Instagram to explain in a nine-minute-long video why exactly he decided to leave Twitter.
The situation first arose when Anderson won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress for 'The Crown' in which she played the late British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. While accepting the award, Anderson — who is known for her roles in 'The Crown' and 'Sex Education', both which feature her speaking in a British accent — spoke in her American accent, surprising many who watched the Golden Globes ceremony, including Baldwin.
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According to E! News, Baldwin retweeted a CNN article regarding the surprise at Anderson's American accent, writing, "Switching accents? That sounds... fascinating," implying a less than subtle dig after his wife, Hilaria, was called out for her Spanish accent when netizens suspected her purported Spanish roots and questioned her ethnicity.
However, Baldwin's tweet was met with criticism as others took to responding to the actor's supposed dig at Anderson. Many users pointed out the differences between Anderson and Baldwin's wife, with one writing, according to The Daily Mail, "This is no way comparable to your wife pretending to be from Spain. Gillian Anderson IS American. How did people not know that?"
Another wrote, "She was born in Chicago and never pretended, outside her acting, to be British. As Thatcher, that was a role. You should know that." A user also responded that Hilaria "pretending to have a foreign accent in order to lay claim to a culture and life story that isn't hers just to exoticize herself is NOT the same thing as Gillian Anderson reasonably speaking two different dialects of English due to her (actual) life story."
Baldwin did not take kindly to the responses and proceeded to delete his Twitter account, following which he took to Instagram to post a video to share why he left the platform. He said, "Wanted to post a quick video to say that I deactivated my Twitter account today." He explained, "I just wrote, 'Oh, that's interesting.' And of course, you can't do any irony on Twitter—you can't do any irony in the United States anymore because the United States is such (an) uptight, stressed-out place and such an unpleasant place right now."
He also pointed out that he was a huge fan of Anderson without mentioning her by name, and said that he had not meant to offend her, but rather was just expressing that if people are influenced by multiple cultures, "that's your business". He continued, "But 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 in asshole-iness, that I had used it as a news aggregator, and I suppose I will do my best to find other places that are similar in their news aggregation in real-time and periodicals I like."
He explained that he "can't say anything dark enough" to describe the crowd on Twitter and added, "The problem with Twitter is, there was a lot of haters."
Baldwin's announcement comes just days after he and his wife announced the arrival of their sixth baby together. The new addition comes just six months after the fitness guru gave birth to their son Eduardo ‘Edu’ Pao Lucas in September 2020. The couple’s other children are two-year-old Romeo Alejandro David, four-year-old Leonardo Ángel Charles, five-year-old Rafael Thomas and seven-year-old Carmen Gabriela. Alec is also the father to his 25-year-old daughter Ireland. Ireland’s mother is actress Kim Basinger.