Actor Alec Baldwin expressed support for Anne Heche following her destructive crash into a Los Angeles home, but some users were quick to criticize him for painting her as a victim.
“Hey, I just wanted to send out my best wishes and all my love to Anne Heche,” Baldwin said in an Instagram video Saturday night.
“Anne is an old pal of mine, and I did a movie with her, a very 90s thriller called ‘The Juror.’”
Baldwin and Heche also shared the stage in the 2004 Broadway play “Twentieth Century,” Fox News reported.
“There’s not a lot of women I worked with who were brave in the way Anne is brave,” Baldwin said. “Anne was really, really just…she would do anything.”
According to TMZ, Los Angeles Police officers said they believed Heche may have been under the influence at the time of the crash.
Video shared on Twitter by KCBS-TV reporter Rachel Kim reportedly showed Heche’s Mini Cooper speeding down a neighborhood street in the moments before the crash.
EXCLUSIVE: Video shows the vehicle owned by actress Anne Heche speeding down a Mar Vista street moments before crashing into a home and sparking a fire. The story on @CBSLA 5pm. pic.twitter.com/1H93z5aVx7
— Rachel Kim (@CBSLARachel) August 5, 2022
Heche first plowed into a garage door at a Los Angeles apartment complex, according to Fox News. She then drove away and crashed into a nearby home, setting off a fire that destroyed the house of the innocent victim.
Does Baldwin deserve criticism for this video?
Around 60 firefighters needed over an hour to extinguish the flames, the New York Post reported. Both Heche and the homeowners survived, but a fundraiser for the homeowners said they lost an “entire lifetime of possessions, mementos” and other items.
If Heche was driving under the influence at the time of these crashes, she was acting in a manner that was decidedly not brave. The words “reckless” and “foolish” would be a much more apt description.
Nonetheless, Baldwin finished his video with a fawning message to his former co-star.
“I love you, Anne,” Baldwin said later in the video. “I love you, and I think you’re such a talented person. I hope everything is okay, and I hope you come through this.
“My heart goes out to you. I’m sorry that you had this tragic thing happen to you, and I’m sending you all my love.”
Baldwin even urged his followers to share in sending “their support and love to the wonderful Anne Heche.”
Instagram users quickly criticized Baldwin for seeming to paint Heche as the victim despite accusations she was under the influence while driving.
“She put lives in danger,” one user wrote.
“How about the family whose home she destroyed?!” another wrote, “Any thoughts for them ??”
The LAPD told TMZ that authorities acquired a warrant to draw Heche’s blood and test it for substances. They said the process could take weeks to complete.
If Heche was truly so intoxicated that it caused her to plow into a garage and a separate home, she clearly has issues she needs to deal with. In that sense, Baldwin is right that we should pray for Heche.
