Alec Baldwin feared for his safety after former U.S. President Donald Trump commented on the fatal shooting on the set of “Rust.”
Last October, the “30 Rock” actor’s prop gun was accidentally discharged during a rehearsal for a scene in Santa Fe, New Mexico, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.
The following month, Trump called Baldwin a “troubled guy” in a radio interview, and in a recent chat with CNN, the 64-year-old recalled how he became “nervous” that the politician’s comments would incite his fanbase – similar to what happened with the U.S. Capitol attack on January 6th 2021.
“The former president of the United States said (I) probably shot her on purpose. To me, (that was) the only time I thought about… that I worried about what was going to happen to me. Because 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,” he said.
“A bunch of people were instructed by the former president to go to the Capitol, and they killed a law enforcement officer. They killed somebody. You don’t think I thought to myself, ‘Are some of those people going to come and kill me?'”
Baldwin alleged “the trigger wasn’t pulled” during a TV special that aired in December.
But earlier this month, officials from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a forensic report to ABC News in which they rejected his claim. Following “accidental discharge testing,” the FBI officers concluded that the gun “could not be made to fire without a pull of the trigger.”
In the CNN interview, Baldwin maintained his innocence and reaffirmed his hope that he won’t be held criminally responsible.
However, he did place responsibility for the accident on armourer/props assistant Hannah Gutierrez-Reed and assistant director Dave Halls.
“I’m pretty confident neither one of them should ever work in a film set again,” the actor continued. “I sincerely believe … (investigators are) going to say that this was an accident. It’s tragic.”
The incident is still being investigated by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office. No charges or arrests have been made.
Baldwin and “Rust” producers were named as defendants in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the cinematographer’s widower Matthew Hutchins in February.