Alec Baldwin: Rose McGowan Is 'Tragic' Face of #MeToo

Alec Baldwin, who's won liberal fans with his lampooning of Donald Trump and alienated some by defending accused several predators, says Rose McGowan is "a tragic front person" for the #MeToo movement.

Baldwin made the remark in a wide-ranging interview in the latest issue of The Hollywood Reporter. He has publicly feuded for some time with McGowan, who has become a leading voice of #MeToo after coming forward with the accusation that film mogul Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted her in 1997.

Baldwin once told the Reporter he'd like to have the actress on his new weekly talk show in spite of "the long, steady piss" he contends she has taken on him. But now that The Alec Baldwin Show is set to premiere this Sunday at 10 p.m. on ABC, "he's clearly changed his mind," the publication notes.

"She's a tragic front person for [the #MeToo] cause," he told the Reporter in the new interview, "and I say that because you don't stand much of a chance of getting where you want to be if you're going to arbitrarily alienate and excoriate innocent men. ... It's like all of a sudden, she's one of the Crips -- the head of her own gang." He added, "You can print that, by the way."

In a PBS Newshour interview in 2017, Baldwin said that rumors had swirled in Hollywood for years about Weinstein's alleged assault of McGowan, and he criticized her for taking a settlement from the producer. "What happened was Rose McGowan took a payment of $100,000 and settled her case with him," he said. "It was for Rose McGowan to prosecute that case."

Baldwin then got into a Twitter war with actress Asia Argento and her then-boyfriend, Anthony Bourdain, along with McGowan, who called him a "wee little baby man" who "wants to protect rapists."

The actor has come under further criticism for defending accused sexual abusers such as Woody Allen and James Toback. But Baldwin told the Reporter he has no sympathy for those who are guilty of such misdeeds. "All these guys who have done terrible things, who doesn't want them punished?" he said. "This whole idea that I'm covering for Jimmy Toback or whatever? The minute that people are found guilty of some crime or there's a glistening reservoir of information or evidence ..."

He also noted that a journalist last year asked one of Baldwin's costars if he had molested her on a film set in the 1980s, when she was a minor. Baldwin said she told the journalist the story was "ridiculous," and the accusation never made its way into print. But Baldwin said the experience made him feel like "Wow, they're looking for people. ... They're coming for me."

Baldwin touched on many more subjects in the interview, saying "Black people love me" because of his portrayal of Trump on Saturday Night Live, and discussing what he'd say to Trump if he were a guest on Baldwin's talk show. He said he'd ask Trump, among other things, what he would do differently as president if he had the opportunity to change the past, but he has no faith Trump would answer honestly.

And of his Trump-supporting brother Stephen, he said, "To me, he's like Rolfe in The Sound of Music," referring to a character who becomes a Nazi. "He's just hanging out with the wrong crowd."