Embattled star Alec Baldwin has set off a flurry of discussion about whether he so desperately needs to make money since the fatal shooting of Halyna Hutchins on the set of “Rust” that he agreed to star in a real estate video, hawking the sale of his beloved Hamptons estate after a $10 million price cut.
In the two-minute video, the New York-based film and TV star can be seen walking along the beach as he explains that he’s had a home on the East End of Long Island since 1982 and that he purchased this particular property in 1995, expanding the main house twice so that it boasts 10,000 square feet of space.
“You just can’t get this out here, you can’t buy big pieces of land, especially in Amagansett,” the “30 Rock” actor declared in the video, which is available on his realtor’s YouTube page. Baldwin described his property as “peaceful” and “beautiful” in the wintertime.
The lavish estate is listed for $19 million, the New York Post said, citing a report by Behind the Hedges. This price marks a $10 million drop from its initial lasting price back in September 2022, the Post said.
It’s pretty unusual for homeowners — and celebrities in particular — to get so directly involved in selling a home, prompting Baldwin’s many critics to wonder if he’s being forced to sell to raise money.
“Oh, dear, this reeks of desperation – what other former ‘celebrity’ has made a video trying to sell their house while making the entire sales pitch about them?” one person commented on the video, according to Yahoo Entertainment.
These people speculate that Baldwin has huge legal bills, related to the “Rust” shooting. The actor also is raising seven young children with his wife Hilaria Baldwin — a domestic situation that reportedly involves a cadre of nannies, private school tuition and other expenses.
In 2022, Baldwin complained that he has lost work since the “Rust” shooting, telling CNN: “I got fired from another job yesterday. There I was all set to go to a movie, jump on a plane … I’ve been talking with these guys for months and they told me yesterday we don’t want to do the film with you because of this.”
“If I didn’t have my wife, I don’t know where I would be right now,” Baldwin also said. “If I didn’t have her, I probably would have quit, retired, gone off, you know sold everything I owned, got a house in the middle of nowhere and just you know did find something else to do.”
Cinematographer Hutchins was killed and director Joel Souza was hospitalized in the October 2021 tragedy, which occurred on the New Mexico set of the low-budget Western that Baldwin was producing and starring in. The veteran film and TV star was handling a gun while rehearsing a scene involving a shoot-out in a church. For reasons that continue to be disputed, the gun held a round of live ammunition, when it should only have had dummy rounds. The gun fired, and Hutchins was killed.
Baldwin has since faced multiple lawsuits in connection with the shooting, including from Hutchins’ family and members of the “Rust” crew. In January 2023, he was charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter. Those charges were dropped a few months later without prejudice, meaning that he could still be charged at any time. In October, New Mexico prosecutors said they would reconvene a grand jury to consider whether to refile charges. But as of this month, Baldwin hasn’t been charged.
Baldwin’s IMDB page shows about a half-dozen projects in the works, which mostly appear to be low-budget features. He, Souza and other cast and crew members re-united last spring in Montana to complete filming on “Rust,” but it’s not known when the film will be released, according to Deadline.
Since the shooting, Baldwin and his influencer wife Hilaria have been reconfiguring their real estate portfolio, the New York Post reported. Baldwin first put the Long Island estate on the market in 2022, and “set the bar high” with a listing price of $29 million, the Post said. But with “the evolving market dynamics,” Baldwin first dropped the price to $25 million and later to $22.5 million.
The Post also reported that Baldwin has been privately shopping his Greenwich Village penthouse, which he initially purchased in 2011 and expanded in 2019.
Meanwhile in 2022, Alec and Hilaria Baldwin sold their lake house in upstate New York for $530,000, while buying a massive $1.7 million farm outside Arlington, Vermont, the Post reported.
It’s not known why the Baldwins chose to buy property in that part of Vermont, but Hilaria Baldwin’s grandfather, David Lloyd Thomas, was a long-time resident of the area, the Post said. Hilaria Baldwin is said to have strong family roots in New England, contrary to her notorious, decade-long effort to try to pass her off in the media as a glamorous half-Spanish immigrant.
There also was speculation that the Baldwins might re-locate from New York to the Vermont property, which would offer a quieter and more spacious location in which to raise their many children.
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