Alec Baldwin feared for his life after Trump insinuated the tragic Rust shooting wasn't an accident
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Alec Baldwin says he feared for his life after former President Donald Trump made comments on a right-wing podcast suggesting that the tragic Rust shooting wasn't an accident.
In an interview with CNN that aired Friday, Baldwin recalled Trump's reaction in the aftermath of the deadly incident, which occurred when a prop gun the actor was using in a scene discharged a live round, killing the director of photography, Halyna Hutchins.
"The former president of the United States said, 'He probably shot her on purpose.' To me, that was the only time I was worried about what was going to happen," Baldwin said. "Here was Trump, who instructed people to commit acts of violence, and he was pointing the finger at me and saying I was responsible for the death."
About a month after the Oct. 21 shooting, Trump sat down for an interview with conservative podcaster Chris Stigall and suggested Baldwin might be hiding something. "But even if it was loaded, and that's a weird thing — maybe he [Baldwin] loaded it," he said. "He's a cuckoo-bird; he's a nutjob. And usually, when there's somebody like that, you know, in my opinion, he had something to do with it."
Baldwin has maintained that he did not pull the revolver's trigger at the time of the shooting, which also injured the film's director, Joel Souza. But according to an FBI forensic report obtained by ABC News last week, the revolver at the center of this case — when "intact and functional" — "could not be made to fire without a pull of the trigger" unless the hammer was "de-cocked on a loaded chamber" and "the hammer was struck directly."
Baldwin's attorney responded to the report in a statement to ABC News, saying the FBI report is "being misconstrued." He added, "The gun fired in testing only one time — without having to pull the trigger — when the hammer was pulled back and the gun broke in two different places. The FBI was unable to fire the gun in any prior test, even when pulling the trigger, because it was in such poor condition."
No criminal charges have been filed in the case.
Baldwin told CNN that he's lost five acting gigs since the Rust incident, saying, "I got fired from another job yesterday. There I was all set to go to a movie, jump on a plane… I've been talking with these guys for months and they told me yesterday we don't want to do the film with you because of this." He said the stress from the ordeal has "taken years off my life," adding, "There is just this torrent of people attacking me who don't know the facts."
He also said that he and some of the cast and crew would like to finish filming Rust (the production was shuttered after the incident) and use the film's proceeds to help support Hutchins' husband and children, though no concrete plans have been made.
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