Alec Baldwin breaks silence on James Toback sexual misconduct claims

Alec Baldwin has addressed the sexual misconduct claims against James Toback, Baldwin’s former director on Seduced and Abandoned and The Private Life of a Modern Woman who’s been accused sexual harassment or sexual assault by more than 300 women.

“In all the time I’ve known Jimmy, I never had one conversation about his sex life, which is not unusual for me because I’m not sitting down with some guy and he’s saying to me, ‘Man, you should have seen what I did last night with this girl in this hotel.’ I don’t go there,” Baldwin told The Los Angeles Times, which first broke the news of the Tobak scandal, in a new interview.

“I’d always heard Jimmy was peculiar,” he continued. “I remember years ago, with [the movie] The Pick-up Artist, Jimmy had this reputation 20, 25 years ago or more of hitting on [women], going up and saying provocative things to them. I’d heard of that. But in my time with Jimmy, it was absolutely, positively business.”

Toback was initially accused of sexual misconduct by 38 women in the Los Angeles Times story. The paper later reported that more than 300 women have come forward with similar allegations. In the days since, numerous famous actresses have also spoken out about their alleged interactions with Toback, including Selma Blair, Rachel McAdams, and Julianne Moore. When contacted by Rolling Stone before the Los Angeles Times story published, the filmmaker offered a volatile response in denying any wrongdoing. “The idea that I would offer a part to anyone for any other reason than that he or she was gonna be the best of anyone I could find is so disgusting to me,” he told a reporter. “And anyone who says it is a lying c—sucker or c— or both. Can I be any clearer than that?”

Baldwin’s only public response to the scandal had been a tweet attacking an article on The Decider about his documentary with Toback, Seduced and Abandoned. “I cheered when Gawker lost its case to Hulk. So, of course The Decider wants to tar me w the Toback brush. Kayla Cobb, ur a dreadful writer,” he wrote.

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Baldwin said he “never knew of anything where Jimmy assaulted or bullied or pressured.” However, the actor said he knew about Toback hitting on women in a “very vague way,” which he then clarified meant “that he had an appetite for going up to women and saying salacious and provocative things to them and introducing himself with his credentials and so forth and laying that on people to seduce them.”

Baldwin, who’s been impersonating President Trump on Saturday Night Live, also took the opportunity to address the years of sexual misconduct allegations against Trump. “Trump is a sexual predator,” he said. “On the record, there’s all kinds of evidence that Trump has behaved this way, and he’s the president of the United States and that being just one of the things that is horrifying people about Trump, his opinions, his behavior, his methodology and there’s nothing you can do about that. You cannot touch him.” (Trump has denied the claims of sexual misconduct.)

Read Baldwin’s full response to The Los Angeles Times.