Actor Alec Baldwin arrives for the funeral services of James Gandolfini outside the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in New York June 27, 2013. Gandolfini died in Rome on June 19, 2013, after suffering a heart attack at the age of 51.LUCAS JACKSON/Reuters
By now, most of us know not to mess with Alec Baldwin. Remember this episode? Or this one?
But attack his pregnant wife and be prepared for a profane, public shaming.
Yesterday, when a showbiz writer from the Daily Mail accused Hilaria Baldwin of tweeting while attending James Gandolfini's funeral, Alec shot back with a spate of angry and offensive missives, finally deleting his Twitter account (for the third time).
First, he defended his wife, which would have been the normal thing to do – had he not continued to attack the journalist with all sorts of expletives.
Salon has posted screenshots of his Twitter feed, which has since disappeared into the ether.
There's not much that is printable. "My wife and I attend a funeral to pay our respects to an old friend and some toxic Brit writes this f--- trash," contains only one expletive. Several others suggest extreme violence resulting in death.
Like this one: "Someone wrote that my wife was tweeting at a funeral. Hey. That's not true. But I'm going to tweet at your funeral."
The Twitter tirade was prompted by Daily Mail writer George Stark's online report that Hilaria had been posting messages about wedding anniversary ideas and making smooth recipes with Rachel Ray, all while attending the service in New York.
This was a presumptuous low-blow; often, celebrities will have publicists tweet on their behalf. In this case, it seems that the Los Angeles-based writer confused his time zones.
Meanwhile Hilaria continues to post on Twitter. Last night, she wrote, "My husband fights for me fiercely. It hurts to be misunderstood and it hurts to see your loved one in pain-even more so when she is pregnant."
The 30 Rock star is notorious for having no filter. But here's the most telling tweet of them all: "I don't have a publicist anymore. I fired them."
At this rate, you have to wonder how many people are lining up to fill the vacancy.