Distraught Baldwin Denies Bush Comments

September 19, 2000 -- Actor Alec Baldwin is under siege after a German magazine allegedly quoted Baldwin's wife, Kim Basinger, as saying that the celeb couple would leave the United States if Republican candidate George W. Bush is elected president.

The agitated Baldwin says that neither he nor his wife ever made such claims, and that Basinger didn't even do an interview for the damning issue of Germany's Focus magazine, which hit newsstands Monday. Other news outlets picked up the story, and Baldwin was hit by hate mail.

The Democrat-supporting actor received so many inflammatory posts on his personal Web site (www.alecbaldwin.com) that he chose to release a statement to clear up the confusion.

"I would like to take the opportunity to respond to the unprecedented number of e-mails I received at this site regarding comments that were attributed to me and my wife by both Focus magazine, in Germany, and [Internet news site] the Drudge Report here in the United States," Baldwin wrote on his official home page.

"[Drudge Report founder] Matt Drudge has reported that my wife stated in Focus magazine that my family would leave the country if George W. Bush were elected president. That statement is not true. My wife never made the statement which the magazine (and now Drudge) are attributing to her."

Baldwin told the New York Daily News that he believes that the confusion began when crafty director Robert Altman recently told journalists at the Deauville Film Festival in France that he would leave the States if Bush wins the November election.

"I never said I'd leave the country," Baldwin asserted to the Daily News. "And my wife never heard of Focus magazine, and never talked to them."

Baldwin, who has himself frequently toyed with the idea of running for political office, did say that if Bush is elected, he would "raise as much money as I can" to make sure he is only a one-term president.