Alec Baldwin revealed during a recent CNN interview (via TMZ) that he feared Trump supporters would kill him following the “Rust” shooting last October. Baldwin, the star and producer of the indie Western film, was holding the firearm when it fired during a take and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
Trump reacted to the tragedy by claiming Baldwin “probably shot her on purpose,” which Baldwin feared would ignite the former president’s fan base against him in the same way Trump rallied his supporters during the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021.
“The former president of the United States said [I] probably shot her on purpose. To me, that was the only time I was worried about what was going to happen,” Baldwin told CNN. “Here was Trump, who instructed people to commit acts of violence, and he was pointing the finger at me and saying I was responsible for the death.”
Baldwin said that after Trump’s message he was “1000% nervous” about Trump supporters attacking him. He added, “A bunch of people were instructed by the former president to go to the Capitol, and they killed a law enforcement officer. They killed somebody. You don’t think I thought to myself, ‘Are some of those people going to come and kill me?’”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation recently concluded the investigation into the “Rust” shooting and declared that the firearm that killed Hutchins could not have fired “without a pull of the trigger while the working internal components were intact and functional.” The FBI’s conclusion didn’t align with Baldwin’s previous statements regarding the tragedy. The actor has maintained that he believes that he did not pull the trigger on the gun prior to it firing.
“The trigger wasn’t pulled,” Baldwin told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in an interview last December. “I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them. Never.”