Alec Baldwin got brutally honest about how his health took a turn after the Rust shooting.
“That was unspeakably difficult to deal with,” Baldwin, 68, told “The Hollywood Reporter Awards Chatter” podcast in an episode released Monday, April 13.
The actor called the situation “very painful,” adding, “I wound up staying home a lot. I was home with my kids for three and a half years — I hardly worked at all. … I don’t want to leave my house anymore. I don’t. I don’t want to work anymore. I don’t. I really don’t. I want to retire and stay home with my kids.”
Baldwin was originally charged with involuntary manslaughter in January 2023 following cinematographer Halyna Hutchins‘ death on set. He was holding a prop gun that was misfired on the movie set in October 2021, killing Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza, but Baldwin has insisted he wasn’t responsible for the incident.
Alec, Hilaria Baldwin’s Candid Quotes About ‘Rust’ Shooting, Halyna Hutchins
“The trigger wasn’t pulled. I didn’t pull the trigger,” Baldwin said during an interview with ABC News at the time, calling the accident the “worst thing” that has ever happened to him. “I would never point a gun at anyone and pull the trigger at them. Never. I have no idea [how a bullet got in there]. Someone put a live bullet in a gun. A bullet that wasn’t even supposed to be on the property.”
During Monday’s podcast, Baldwin explained why he had to return to Montana to complete filming the movie.
“We had to go back and finish the movie Rust in Montana as a component of the settlement with her husband, [Matthew],” Baldwin said. “It impacted me in every way — financially, career-wise, my wife, my kids, my health. I was so sick. I mean, we had to finish. We gave him the movie and said, ‘You sell it and do whatever you want with it.’”
He continued: “So I had to go [finish the film], and I was really sick — I had a nerve condition that you get when you take blood pressure medication, orthostatic hypotension, where you black out.”
According to the Cleveland Clinic, orthostatic hypotension is caused by a sudden drop in blood pressure when someone stands up after sitting or lying down. Baldwin claimed his health issues were so severe that he “blacked out three times during the St. Patrick’s Day weekend of that year.”
“I fell on top of my wife once. It was crazy. It was horrible. So I get into bed. I’m in bed for eight days. I can’t get out of bed. I can’t walk. I had to go to physical therapy for two weeks,” he said. “I had to get up on a horse and go back there to Montana to finish the film, or they were going to sue the s*** out of me. So I make it — I get there, and I don’t give the performance I want to give because I’m sick, but I did the best I could.”
Baldwin ultimately pleaded not guilty and the charges were dropped in April 2023. He was indicted again in connection with Hutchins’ death, but the second case was ultimately dismissed. Baldwin has since filed a lawsuit accusing the prosecution team of malicious prosecution and civil rights violations.
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“There are too many people who have supported me to thank just now,” Baldwin wrote via Instagram in July 2024. “To all of you, you will never know how much I appreciate your kindness toward my family.”
Baldwin elaborated on the shooting while filming his family’s TLC reality series, which premiered in February 2025. “This has been just surreal,” Alec told his wife, Hilaria Baldwin. “I can’t even believe that we’re going through this, and I always feel more in pain about you than I do. I think to myself that I’m going to try my best to just get through it, and I think about what it’s done to you and how much it’s hurt you and everything.”
In a confessional, Alec added, “This past year was just terrible. There were times I’d lay in bed. I’d go, ‘Wow, my kids. I can’t get up.’ That’s not like me. I’m not like that at all, not in any way am I like that. Never.”
Though Alec’s charges were dropped, Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in March 2024 and sentenced to 18 months in prison. Her attorneys’ appeal for a new trial was denied in September 2024.
