Alec Baldwin is defending himself
against accusations he hurled an anti-gay slur during an altercation
with a photographer.
TMZ.com
claims Baldwin called the photographer a “cocksucking faggot”
during the altercation which took place last week outside his New
York City apartment.
Baldwin denied the claim, saying
he said “cocksucking fathead.”
“I never used the word faggot in the
tape recording being offered as evidence against me,” Baldwin wrote
in a Huffington
Post op-ed. “What word is said right after the other
choice word I use is unclear. But I can assure you, with complete
confidence, that a direct homophobic slur (or indirect one for that
matter) is not spoken. In the wake of referring to a tabloid
'journalist' as a toxic queen, I would never allow myself to make
that mistake again, nor would I expose my wife and family to the
attendant ridicule.”
The incident led to the two-week
suspension of Baldwin's MSNBC show, Up Late with Alec Baldwin,
which is expected to return on
Friday, November 29.
Baldwin
said the show might not return.
“Whether
the show comes back at all is at issue right now,” he wrote. “But
if the show dies, its fate ends up being no different than the vast
majority of start-up TV programming, and so be it.”
(Related:
Anderson
Cooper, Keith Olbermann weigh in on Alec Baldwin suspension.)