Two months before Alec Baldwin is scheduled to go on trial for the fatal shooting on the “Rust” movie set, with prosecutors alleging that he’s a volatile personality who lacks “control of his own emotions,” the actor appeared Monday in a viral video clip, trying very hard to not lose his cool when confronted in a New York City neighborhood coffee shop by a known social media provocateur who filmed him while demanding he answer, “Why did you kill that lady?” and declare, “Free Palestine!”
Eventually, Baldwin got fed up and slapped the phone out of the hand of the woman, a self-described “clown,” performance artist and “ambush interviewer” known as Crackhead Barney. The woman’s video, pinned to her X account, also shows that she called the film and TV star a “criminal” and a “murderer” and said she would leave him alone only if he would finally say “free Palestine one time.”
Many people online, even people who say they don’t like Baldwin, expressed sympathy for him in this situation and said he was justified in taking Crackhead Barney’s phone away, even as she ranted on X about being “attacked” by the “white devil.”
On her post, which has been viewed nearly 7 million times, one person replied, “It’s really hard to make Alec Baldwin seem like the sane one in an encounter, but you managed it.” Others also said, “I don’t even like him and I would’ve helped HIM not you” and “I’m afraid (I’d) do much worse than Alec to you.”
It’s not clear when the dust-up occurred but it took place in a Greenwich Village cafe, just around the corner from Baldwin’s penthouse on East 10th Street. Crackhead Barney’s video shows her confronting the film and TV veteran as he stands at the cafe’s counter, talking on the phone to someone. “Can you please say free Palestine one time,” Barney begins her ambush. She then asks, “Why did you kill that lady?”
Baldwin looks as if he’s trying to ignore her and not look her way. He hangs up his phone, mutters, “I’m so sorry,” and goes to the door and opens it. He gestures several times for the woman to leave, while keeping his head down. When she presses him some more to say “free Palestine,” and calls him an “(expletive) criminal,” he asks a cafe employee to call police. As she continues to harangue him to denounce Israel and Zionism, Baldwin finally moves toward her and, in a quick move, slaps her phone down or snatches it away.
While many news outlets have described Barney as a “pro-Palestine” or “anti-Israel” agitator, she has said on social media that she’s not “an activist” for any particular cause but “an attention whore.” She said she gravitates to political rallies and other events that are focused on a range of “current topics.”
Barney said she tries “to be weird,” filming herself engaged in outlandish, public stunts. Sometimes she wears a Trump mask, or a blonde wig or smears herself in paint. Often she wears not much clothing at all. The targets for her stunts and “ambush interviews” have included Mayor Eric Adams, the Proud Boys, the QAnon Shaman and other Jan. 6 supporters, Marjorie Taylor Greene, anti-abortionists and employees at a Sephora store.
For a 2021 profile, Barney declined to give her real name but the Inverse.com story said she has been performing in public in New York City for years, often on the city’s subways. She began gravitating toward political issues during the protests over the 2020 murder of George Floyd, the story said.
Barney is “a woman who embraces chaos and mystery,” who thinks of herself first and foremost as a “clown,” the story said.
“People have always called me a political character,” she said. “But I don’t feel like a political character. I’m just expressing what society is giving me.”
Barney apparently felt like society was “giving” her Baldwin this week. She certainly appears to be reveling in the attention she’s getting for her confrontation with someone so famous. She’s pinned it to the top of her X account. However, for some reason, Barney locked her Instagram account late Monday night, which also contained an extended video of the confrontation.
One reason people may be reacting so strongly to the video — and expressing sympathy for Baldwin — is that the confrontation is taking place indoors, when the actor appears to be minding his own business, as he stops in at his local cafe to buy some coffee.
Barney probably expected she’d get some kind of reaction from Baldwin, who has become known over the years for his public displays of anger and his scuffles with paparazzi. He also has previously clashed with people over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, the Daily Beast reported. In December, he got into a tense exchange with a protester accusing him of working “for Hollywood” and asking if he condemned Israel.
“You’ve already got your mind made up… Because I’m in Hollywood? Well, you ask stupid questions. Ask me a smart question,” Baldwin snapped back.
It’s also fair to assume that Baldwin is in a difficult place right now, personally and professionally, as he faces trial in New Mexico in July.
The Emmy-winning “30 Rock” star is charged with involuntary manslaughter in the fatal 2021 shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the low-budget Western film “Rust.” While rehearsing a gunfight scene for the film, Baldwin was handling a Colt .45 that discharged a live round, which struck Hutchins and killed her.
Baldwin has said he was told by a crew member that the gun was safe to use — meaning it held no live round. He also claims he didn’t pull the trigger. “Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who inadvertently loaded a live round into gun, was found guilty last month of involuntary manslaughter and has been sentenced to serve 18 months in prison.
Recent court filings in the case show that Baldwin’s prosecutors plan to lean into his reputation as an arrogant, bullying “rage monster,” as the New York tabloids have often labeled him. Lead prosecutor Kari Morrissey has detailed how she intends to argue that Baldwin’s inability to control his emotions on the set of “Rust” — screaming and cursing at himself and others “for no apparent reason” — contributed to safety failures. Morrissey wrote: “To watch Mr. Baldwin’s conduct on the set of ‘Rust’ is to witness a man who has absolutely no control of his own emotions and absolutely no concern for how his conduct affects those around him.”