By now you’ve heard — or at least heard about — the infamous Alec Baldwin voicemail message, which TMZ posted online yesterday. On it, Baldwin angrily berates his 11-year-old daughter Ireland for missing their scheduled phone call, threatens to fly from New York to Los Angeles (today, April 20) to “straighten her out,” accuses her of playing games with and humiliating him, and calls her a “rude, thoughtless little pig.” Just this morning, I’ve heard quite a few people say that they can never look at Baldwin in the same light again after hearing the tirade. To which I have to say: Hold the phone.

Granted, the message is pretty harsh, and it seems to vent a lot of displaced anger at Ireland’s mother, Baldwin’s ex Kim Basinger, with whom he’s, shall we say, not friendly. Certainly it was harsh enough for a judge to temporarily bar Baldwin from seeing or contacting the child earlier this week. But let’s not sic Child Protection Services on Baldwin just yet.

In the first place, this is a private family matter — or at least it was, until someone (Baldwin’s rep claims it was Basinger, and TMZ isn’t spilling) made the message available. A statement from Basinger’s camp in response to Baldwin’s accusation — which says that the message “speaks for itself” — certainly doesn’t do anything to dispel the notion that Basinger leaked the tape.

And if that’s indeed the case, she’s as bad a parent as many are saying Baldwin is. Using your daughter in such a public fashion to gain advantage in a legal dispute is reprehensible, and could end up inflicting far more damage on the child than Baldwin’s hotheaded outbursts. If Ireland grows up into another mentally challenged, party-hopping, freakazoid airhead in the mode of Paris, Britney and Lindsey, Basinger will have no one to blame but herself.

Also, as of this writing, for all we know we’re making a mountain out of a molehill. Baldwin’s rep says he’s apologized to his daughter since leaving the message last week. Why don’t we let the child decide whether this is a big deal? To her, this could just be another one of Daddy’s little temper tantrums, nothing to get worked up about. For that matter, for all we know, Baldwin could be right: Maybe she is jerking him around, disrespecting him, treating him the way millions of kids treat their parents — as to-be-barely-tolerated annoyances. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not excusing Baldwin’s outburst. I’m just saying we don’t know all the facts in this case. And I’m not so sure we need to:  This really isn’y any of our business. How Baldwin chooses to raise his daughter is his business, and until it’s proven that he’s inflicted severe emotional distress (or, heaven forbid, physical abuse), his business it remains.

I’m sure Entertainment Tonight or some other outlet will corner Ireland for an exclusive interview sooner or later, or someone will dig through the right garbage can and shed more light on the whole thing. Until then, why don’t we keep our noses out of it?

This entry was posted on Friday, April 20th, 2007 at 11:44 am and is filed under What's Shaking, Editorial. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.