Alec Baldwin seemingly slapped someone’s phone out of their hand after they kept trying to get him to say “Free Palestine.”
A video posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday night sees a person go up to Baldwin at a New York City coffee shop.
The nearly one-minute video begins with the person asking him to say “Free Palestine.” The person then goes on to address Baldwin’s ongoing involuntary manslaughter case, following the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the Rust set.
Baldwin walks to the front door of the coffee shop, Maman on University Place in Manhattan, and tells the person recording him to “get out now.” The person refuses, despite someone else also telling them to leave. Baldwin then says to call the police.
“Fuck Israel,” the user continues. “Fuck Zionism, please say it.”
The video ends with the actor reentering the coffee shop, asking the employee to do him a favor and then seemingly slapping the phone out of the person’s hand as the image abruptly stops while Baldwin’s hand goes toward the lens.
The video comes amid increased pro-Palestine demonstrations across the country, including at Columbia University and New York University.
More than 100 protesters had camped out on Columbia Green last week and were arrested, according to The Associated Press. Tensions continued at the university, as they locked campus gates for those who didn’t have student IDs, and protests broke out on campus and outside. Classes at Columbia also went fully virtual following the growing protests.
An encampment also appeared at NYU and swelled to hundreds of protesters on Monday. The school warned the crowds to leave and eventually called the police when the scene became disorderly, including reports of “intimidating chants and several antisemitic incidents.”
