Baldwin bombshell: ‘I didn’t pull the trigger’
Alec Baldwin says he has “no idea” how a live bullet ended up in his prop gun and insists he “didn’t pull the trigger” before cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was shot dead on a film set.
The 30 Rock actor spoke with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday for an 80minute interview that will air on Thursday evening in the US (Friday AEDT).
“The trigger wasn’t pulled. I didn’t pull the trigger,” Baldwin said in a preview clip of the interview. “I would never point a gun at anyone and pull the trigger at them. Never.
“Someone put a live bullet in a gun, a bullet that wasn’t even supposed to be on the property,” Baldwin added. The preview scenes show Baldwin crying and placing his head in his hands as he told Stephanopoulos the shooting was the worst thing that ever happened to him.
It didn’t “seem real” Ms Hutchins was dead, he said. “I mean, even now I find it hard to believe (she’s gone).”
The Good Morning America anchor described the discussion as “raw” and “intense”.
“I’ve done thousands of interviews in the past 20 years at the ABC,” Stephanopoulos said. “This was the most intense I have ever experienced. He was so raw, as you can imagine. He was devastated, but he was also very candid, he was very forthcoming. He answered every question, he talked about Halyna, meeting her family as well, and he talked in detail about what happened on the set that day.”
In late October, Baldwin was rehearsing a scene on the set of a low-budget western called Rust in New Mexico when he fired a prop gun loaded with live ammunition, killing Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza.
The incident has spurred an investigation approved by a judge into how live rounds wound up in the gun. Criminal charges have not been laid or ruled out, as the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office is trying to determine how the tragic event occurred.
Last month, the 63-yearold actor spoke informally on a roadside to members of the media who had been following his vehicle in the first days after the shooting.
“She was my friend,” Baldwin said about Hutchins. “The day I arrived in Santa Fe and started shooting, I took her to dinner. We were a very, very well-oiled crew … and then this horrible event happened.”