Alec Baldwin: ‘If MSNBC Went Off the Air Tomorrow, What Difference Would it Make?’

By Merrill Knox 

AlecBaldwinUpLateAlec Baldwin tells the lengthy story of how he reached the decision to give up public life in New York, and in true Baldwin fashion, he doesn’t hold back. The actor, who was fired from MSNBC after he was caught on camera using anti-gay slurs, has nothing nice to say about his former network: “MSNBC, in its own way, is as full of shit, as redundant and as superfluous, as Fox,” Baldwin writes.

Baldwin reserves his harshest words for MSNBC president Phil Griffin, calling him “a veteran programmer who knows well the corridors and chambers of television programming — and couldn’t give a flying f*ck about content.”

Immediately prior to [the paparazzo incident], I’d go see Phil and I’d say, “What are the ratings?” If I had 15 meetings with Phil Griffin, 5 of them were after the show, with me saying, “What do you make of these ratings?” He’d say, “Don’t worry. It takes time.” (We beat Cooper two of three Fridays at ten.) Although he appeared to have some buyer’s remorse, he told me to hang in there. After the TMZ event, he said, “Don’t worry. I have to suspend you. But this will blow over.” I have all the emails to prove it. And then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, MSNBC said, “You’re fired.”

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Once they fired me, a former MSNBC employee I knew emailed me. He said, “You watch now, Phil is going to start leaking left and right to bury you.” When I left, “Page Six” was flooded with lies about me. Another told me, regarding the “toxic little queen” comment, that Rachel Maddow was the prime mover in my firing, as she was aghast that I had been hired and viewed me as equivalent to Mel Gibson. Another source told me, “You know who’s going to get you fired, don’t you? Rachel. Phil will do whatever Rachel tells him to do.” I think Rachel Maddow is quite good at what she does. I also think she’s a phony who doesn’t have the same passion for the truth off-camera that she seems to have on the air.

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