Alec Baldwin is opening up about how his split from Kim Basinger affected his bond with their daughter, Ireland Baldwin.
On the Sunday, March 2, episode of his TLC reality show The Baldwins , the Rust actor reflected on the fallout from his highly publicized divorce from the Batman actress and the years-long custody battle that followed.
“I must say that because my relationship with my daughter Ireland was so negatively impacted by my divorce from her mother and having a very protracted custody battle that the media really were having a party about everything,” he said on the show. “[It] went on for seven years, of which the financials were probably a year and a half and then everything else was custody.”
Looking back, Alec described that period as “just insanity and really, really tough.”
“One of my most regrettable things about the whole thing was how it affected Ireland ,” Alec added.
The former couple tied the knot in 1993 but split in 2002. Their daughter, now 29, found herself caught in the middle of their messy legal battle .
In 2007, the 30 Rock star made headlines when an angry voicemail he left for Ireland surfaced . In the heated message, he called her a “rude, thoughtless little pig,” which led to him temporarily losing visitation rights and issuing a public apology.
“You do not have the brains or the decency as a human being. I don’t give a d— that you’re 12 years old or 11 years old, or that you’re a child, or that your mother was a thoughtless pain in the a–, who doesn’t care what you do as far as I am concerned,” he fumed at the time.
“You have humiliated me for the last time with this phone, and when I come out there next week, I am gonna fly out there for the day just to straighten you out on this issue,” he added.
Years later, in 2015, Alec and Ireland decided to poke fun at the infamous moment . The model posted a photo of herself and her dad reading a children’s book titled If I Were a Pig…
“If I were a pig, I would be rude and thoughtless of course,” she joked in the caption.
Alec played along, posting another photo of the two with the caption, “…I’d be rude and thoughtless. That’s the only pig to be.”
Outside of Ireland, the It’s Complicated star has seven more children with his wife, Hilaria Baldwin , whom he married in 2012. The couple shares daughters Carmen Gabriela, María Lucía Victoria and Ilaria Catalina Irena , along with sons Rafael Thomas , Leonardo Ángel Charles , Romeo Alejandro David and Eduardo “Edu” Pao Lucas .
Despite the big age gap, Alec says Ireland has a great relationship with her younger siblings.
“She loves the kids. I mean, she’s very sweet to them, and she’s their older sister, but she’s not in that pack,” he shared. “This is why I think I’m so focused on [oldest daughter] Carmen and I want to have a good relationship with Carmen, because I have a girl all over again.”
As for Kim, she has no hard feelings toward her ex-husband.
“Alec and I have a great relationship. I have great respect for where he is today and his family,” The Getaway star told Variety .
“We don’t spend Christmases and holidays or see each other very much. But we talk,” she added. “He’ll pick up the phone and call me, and we have a very genuinely cordial and, I think, loving relationship in a lot of ways, just because we share a daughter and I don’t wish him anything but everything good.”
