Alec Baldwin's leaving public life because of us. We shouldn't be sorry

Alec Baldwin recently announced that he would be leaving public life. And then he tweeted photos of his wife doing yoga. Photograph: Picture Perfect/Rex Features

It seems that we owe Alec Baldwin an apology. By "we" I mean the general public or at least those of us who fall into one or more of the following categories – professional photographers; amateur photographers; anyone who owns a smartphone (and uses it to take photographs); airline attendants who order people who own smart phones to turn them off before take-off; New Yorkers; gay people who are offended by gay slurs; straight people who are offended by gay slurs; Shia LaBeouf; the media in general; MSNBC, in particular, and fans who fail to maintain a respectful five foot distance from the famous person on whom they wish to lavish praise.

It seems that because of our collective failure to treat him with due deference, Alec Baldwin feels he has no choice but to give up on public life. If only the misunderstood media star would engage in a little private introspection, this self-imposed estrangement might not be necessary.

2013 should have been another great year for Baldwin. In addition to turning in a praiseworthy performance in an Oscar-nominated movie, (Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine), and getting his own talk show on MSNBC, his lovely new wife had a lovely new baby. But instead, as Baldwin recounts in a 5,000 word "mea not culpa" style essay in this week's New York Magazine, the year became his Annus Horribilus.

He lost his TV show and his lust for show business (or at least some aspects of it) after being unfairly labeled a homophobe and a hothead. The essay was intended (I assume) to vindicate the actor on both counts, (as well as to alert the public of his decision to leave us for failing to please him.) But he would have been better advised to stick to the 140 character Twitter format he has used to air his grievances in the past, as the lengthy essay only reinforces the actor's image as an over-privileged and tone deaf hothead with a persecution complex.

For instance, Baldwin's attempt to show how down he is with the LGBT community got off to a shaky start when he opened by referring to one of his "advisors" in that community as a "M to F Tranny." Nor is he likely to have gained any favor by challenging the integrity of prominent gay individuals like MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, (who he claimed was "phony" in real life even though she says the pair have never met) or by insulting CNN's Anderson Cooper or The Dish's Andrew Sullivan or TMZ's Harvey Levin, whom Baldwin has collectively referred to in the past as the "fundamentalist wing of gay advocacy" when they objected to his threatening a gay British journalist with violence and calling him a "toxic little queen".

Baldwin claims that he didn't know this term was offensive to gay people and later apologized. He did the same a few months later when he called a photographer a "cock-sucking fathead" (or more likely "cock-sucking faggot" –you decide). Still, while a tendency to put one's foot in one's mouth does not necessarily a homophobe make, expressing a desire to stick one's foot up someone else's ass is another matter.

For anyone unfamiliar with the "toxic little queen" incident, it all started when the aforementioned British journalist, George Stark, falsely asserted that Baldwin's wife, Hilaria, had tweeted during James Gandolfini's funeral. By way of response, Baldwin sent Stark a series of tweets threatening to find him, fuck him up and this nugget:

If [sic] put my foot up your fucking ass, George Stark, but I'm sure you'd dig it too much.

In his essay, Baldwin apologizes for calling Stark a "toxic little queen" and claims he didn't realize at the time that it was a homophobic statement. He doesn't mention the bit about wanting to put his foot up his ass, however, and even re-invokes the violent threats by writing that "If he was in New York, I might had had the impulse to beat the shit out of the guy." Whatever this attempt at vindication may or may not do to mitigate Baldwin's reputation as a homophobe, it can only reinforce his reputation as a violent hothead.

All very noble, I suppose and, in the actor's defense, some of the photographers who hang around outside his apartment building do seem to get a kick out of goading him. But Baldwin should have learned by now that if you assault a photographer in the morning, rather than deterring paparazzi activity, it's far more likely that by the afternoon there will be a swarm of media on his doorstep hoping to photograph further assaults.The actor's proclivity for violence is not comprised solely of idle threats. In a recent interview on the Late Show with David Letterman, the host tentatively raised the delicate issue of Baldwin's rather tense relations with members of the paparazzi whom he has been photographed assaulting on many occasions. "What is the cycle,"Letterman asked, "that I pick up the paper and see you strangling a photographer?" Baldwin jovially responded that it does seem like it's "almost daily" and proceeded to justify the assaults as a necessary means of protecting his wife and child.

Anyway, pretty soon, the paparazzi of New York will have to find another celebrity to beat them up since Baldwin has publicly declared his decision to leave public life. Unfortunately, as is often the case with such declarations, (Baldwin's nemesis Shia LaBeouf's omnipresence in the media since he announced his retirement being a case in point), they rarely stick. As Salon reported, less than a day after pronouncing his desire to shield his family from prying media eyes, Baldwin was tweeting photos of his wife doing yoga. So we're not off to a good start, but at least the actor has acknowledged that he has some problems.

Now if he could only realize that he is the instigator and not merely the victim of most of his problems, we'd all be better off.