Alec Baldwin is in trouble for ‘manterrupting' his wife – but somebody had to

Telegraph

29-03-2025

As the team grinds into pre-production for a new series of Only Connect, my mind as always starts grouping everything around me in sets of four. You know how that happens? If you do too many crosswords, all the number plates of passing cars turn into anagrams? If you play too much Scrabble, you can't read emails without involuntarily scoring the words?
If you don't know what I mean, Only Connect is probably not the show for you. Or, if you do, you might enjoy this puzzle: what connects 'Spreading', 'Scaping', 'Splaining' and… ready for the fourth giveaway clue? 'Terrupting'.
That's right: you can put 'man' in front of all of them to complete a zeitgeisty modern coinage.
'Manspreading' was invented to describe the way that some men sprawl in seats, particularly on public transport, legs akimbo to take up as much space as possible.
'Manscaping' refers to cosmetic trimming of body hair in the nether regions (I do apologise if you're reading this over breakfast, especially if you're having vermicelli). And 'mansplaining' is the original: credited to Rebecca Solnit, author of the book Men Explain Things to Me, it describes a particularly male way of slowly telling women how everything works. (Men talk to women like they're idiots, women talk about men like they're idiots, mutatis mutandis.)
I had never heard 'manterrupting' until last week, although – before a hero leaps in mid-sentence to parse it for me – I reckon I can decipher what it means. It came up over and over again after a controversial red-carpet interview with the actor Alec Baldwin and his wife Hilaria.
Did you hear about this? The Baldwins are doing a reality TV show together, a fly-on-the-wall look at their life and many children. (Voice in head: 'All we need now for an Only Connect question is three more things that Alec Baldwin has in common with Jacob Rees-Mogg. Has Jacob Rees-Mogg confessed to 'a white-hot cocaine problem'? Has Jacob Rees-Mogg had a long, steamy affair with Kim Basinger? Did Alec Baldwin campaign for British Acts of Parliament to continue being printed on vellum? Keep thinking, keep thinking…')
At the opening night for a new Planet Hollywood, the Baldwins were asked about their series. She answered, he joined in and she snapped: 'No! When I'm talking you're not talking!' The awkward footage went viral and the Baldwins have spent the intervening time posting damage-limitation videos on TikTok and Instagram to emphasise that he 'manterrupted' her, he's very sorry and everyone's fine. Now, the press shrieks that Alec Baldwin has been brought humiliatingly to heel, his wife has got him by the short and manscaped, the marriage is on the rocks.
@extra_tv Alec and Hilaria Baldwin on if we'll see a Season 2 of their family reality show! 📺 #alecbaldwin #hilariabaldwin #thebaldwins #tlc ♬ original sound - ExtraTV
Intrigued by all this gossip, I paid £3.99 for Discovery+ in order to watch an episode of The Baldwins. My verdict is: this might be the most boring programme I've ever seen, but they aren't unhappily married.
Why would they be? He's a Hollywood star with a house in the Hamptons, she's a hot yoga instructor 26 years younger, everyone's happy. Idly, I remember the photo I once saw in Vanity Fair of the busty Playboy centrefold Anna Nicole Smith with her 89-year-old billionaire husband J. Howard Marshall in a jewellery shop, captioned: 'J Howard relaxes in his wheelchair as Anna picks out gems.' What a contented sentence that was.
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No criticism intended, by the way. Of course Alec Baldwin's money and fame increase his sex appeal; that's no shallower than his own liking for his wife's youth and bendiness. Besides, contentedness is not necessarily in the eye of the beholder. Anna Nicole Smith was left nothing in that lecherous old billionaire's will and died from a drug overdose some years later. Alec and Hilaria filmed their series throughout the aftermath of a disaster on a Western he was making, where he shot dead a young woman cinematographer (and mother of a small boy) with a faulty prop gun that turned fatal.
'I've never been through anything remotely like this in my entire life,' says Alec. Well, one would think not. I found it weird enough just typing it out in a sentence.
So we can assume they're tormented, although they've overcome it sufficiently to film themselves giggling as they squirt pink icing onto one of their indistinguishable children's birthday cakes, which is not perhaps what you or I might have done under the circumstances.
Problem is, Alec Baldwin is a bit special and his wife really isn't. I mean… you know, we're all special in the eyes of the Lord and our children. But special on camera is a different story. Alec Baldwin is a unique character with an astonishing face, powerful charisma and funny bones; anyone who's seen 30 Rock knows that, never mind the Hollywood blockbusters he made before. Hilaria is like someone you might greet politely on the next rowing machine at the gym. She's fine. Ordinary, pretty and fine. Everything that's wrong with the reality show comes down to her talking too much. Not as a wife! Not as a woman! But as a voice on camera, sheesh, put a sock in it. It's all so, so, so boring.
The idea of Mrs Baldwin as a co-star with equal box-office appeal, shutting the old man up on a red carpet so she can expound at length… I'm afraid it's not terribly good for women. It's not what the concepts of 'mansplaining' and 'manterrupting' were invented for.
Say what you like about Meghan Markle; at least in her marriage she is the more sparkling performer. God spare us from the Hilaria and Prince Harry show.