Alec Baldwin on How Divorce ‘Negatively Impacted’ Relationship with Daughter Ireland

Things reached a crescendo between Alec and Ireland, now 29, in 2007 when the 66-year-old was caught on a voicemail calling his daughter a “rude, thoughtless little pig.” The voicemail went the 2007 equivalent of viral, and the father-daughter duo have never fully shaken the moment.

On the latest episode of his first-ever reality show, TLC’s The Baldwins, Alec opened up about the challenges he and Ireland faced over the years, touching on what he thought was probably one of the biggest factors in their struggles.

“My relationship with my daughter Ireland was so negatively impacted by my divorce with her mother — and having a protracted custody battle,” he said, referring to his 2002 divorce from Kim Basinger after nine years of marriage.

“The media really were having a party about everything,” he noted, with everything clearly including that angry voicemail left when Ireland was 11 years old because she didn’t pick up his planned call.

Their seven-year divorce battle was mostly about Ireland, with Alec saying “the financials were probably a year and a half and everything else was custody.” He called the whole process “just insanity and really tough.”

“One of my most regrettable things was how it affected Ireland,” Alec added of their bitter divorce. “But she is grown and is 29 years old. I have a good relationship with her and she loves the kids.”

“She is sweet to them and is their older sister, but she isn’t in that pack,” he continued, saying that it is because of what happened between him and Ireland that he is working so hard on his relationship with daughter Carmen, “because I have a girl all over again.”

Alec and Ireland have poked fun at the voicemail incident over the years, too, which temporarily cost him custody at the time and led to a public apology.

In 2015, Ireland shared a picture of her and Alec sitting together and reading from a book titled If I Were a Pig…, as recalled by OK Magazine. To this image, she added the caption, “If I were a pig, I would be rude and thoughtless of course.”

Alec also shared a pic of the two, captioning his share, “…I’d be rude and thoughtless. That’s the only thing to be.”

As for where things stand with Kim, she recently praised her ex, telling Variety just this past week that they have a “great relationship” now. “I have great respect for where he is today, and his family,” she told the outlet.

Kim said that while they don’t talk regularly or spend holidays together or anything, things are in a good place. “We have a very genuinely cordial and I think loving relationship in a lot of ways, just because we share a daughter, and I don’t wish him anything but everything good,” she shared.