Alec Baldwin smacked the cell phone of a heckler who confronted him in a coffee shop about the death of Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust.
In a video shared via social media on Monday, April 22, Baldwin was on the phone at the Maman café in New York City when another patron confronted him about Hutchins, who was killed in October 2021. The person also asked the actor, 66, to address the war in Gaza.
“Alec, can you please say ‘Free Palestine’ one time?” asks the heckler, who is the host of the “Crackhead Barney Experience” podcast. “Why did you kill that lady? You killed that lady and got no jail time? No jail time, Alec? No jail time, Alec. You’re putting innocent people in jail, Alec Baldwin. ‘Free Palestine,’ Alec, just one time, and I’ll leave you alone.”
An employee of the coffee shop attempts to escort the podcaster from the shop before Baldwin himself holds the door open and makes a motion for them to leave. “Get out,” Baldwin says before telling the employee they should call the police.
Halyna Hutchins Mat Hayward/Getty Images for AMC Networks
“You know he’s a f–king criminal,” the podcaster responds. “‘Free Palestine’ one time … and I’ll leave you alone. Free Palestine. F–k Israel? F–k Zionism. Please say it.”
At that point, Baldwin asks someone off camera, “Can you do me one quick favor?” before slapping the phone.
“White devil Alec Baldwin attacked me,” the podcaster claimed in the video’s caption. “While I was trying to get coffee.”
The heckler was referring to the fatal shooting of Hutchins, who was 42, on the set of Baldwin’s film Rust. Baldwin, who has not been convicted of any crime, was holding a prop gun when it fired, killing cinematographer Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza.
In an interview with George Stephanopoulos two months later, Baldwin denied responsibility for the shooting. “The trigger wasn’t pulled. I didn’t pull the trigger. I would never point a gun at anyone and pull the trigger at them. Never,” he said in December 2021. “I have no idea [how a bullet got in there]. Someone put a live bullet in a gun. A bullet that wasn’t even supposed to be on the property.”
Baldwin was charged with involuntary manslaughter in January 2023 and pleaded not guilty, but the charges were dropped three months later. After an independent investigation into the gun itself, it was reported in August 2023 that the manslaughter charges against Baldwin could be refiled. The results of the investigation showed that the gun’s trigger had to have been pulled in order for the weapon to fire.
Following that investigation, Baldwin was charged with involuntary manslaughter a second time this year.
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“We look forward to our day in court,” Baldwin’s attorneys, Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro, told Us in a statement in January. If convicted, Baldwin faces up to 18 months in prison.
Baldwin was also named in a February 2022 wrongful death lawsuit filed on behalf of Halyna’s husband, Matthew Hutchins, and their son. An undisclosed settlement was later that year.
Earlier this month, Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was sentenced to 18 months in prison after she was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in March.