Kim Basinger Reflects on Her "Nasty" Divorce From Alec Baldwin
Though Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin are evidently "cool" now 13 years after their acrimonious split, Kim did took us on trip down terrible memory lane in an interview with The Edit.
"There were times I could have chosen [my movies] better. I did this film, The Marrying Man, where I met my eventual [now-ex] husband, Alec Baldwin, but I was teeter-tottering because I had also been offered Sleeping with the Enemy [which eventually starred Julia Roberts]," she says. "Isn't it funny that I turned down Sleeping with the Enemy and then I went on to sleep with the enemy!"
As you may recall from the early aughts, the couple's divorce proceedings quickly turned ugly as they fought for custody of their daughter, Ireland. She was unfortunately propelled into the headlines in 2007 when an embittered voicemail Alec left her went viral. She was 11 years old at the time that Alec could be heard calling her a "rude, thoughtless little pig."
"Divorce is hard on a kid, no matter how you cut it," Kim said. "And ours was very public and nasty. So I brought up Ireland in a very unconventional way. I just wanted her to be free. If she wanted to have her friends over and write over the walls with pen, that was fine. I wanted her childhood to be full of love and light and animals and friends."
Alec, 58, who has two little ones with his 32-year-old yoga instructor wife Hilaria (she's expecting, btw) was caustically outspoken during the process.
In an interview with 20/20, the author of A Promise to Ourselves: A Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce, said "I don't care if the judges and the lawyers die of heart attacks in the process of getting their job done. They are corrupt, inefficient, lazy, stupid-they're the most God-awful people."
Alec, who has a notoriously bad temper, agreed to to go to anger therapy and parenting school as part of the settlement, despite the fact that Ireland later brushed off that phone incident, saying it was blown way out of proportion.
But, Basinger, 62, says, "Life goes on," adding, "Alec and I are cool now" and she's set her sights on other blokes.
"My taste in men has changed a lot over the years," she told The Edit. "When you're young, you're attracted to the 'bad boy,' only to find out that they're actually just bullies or insecure-you're attracted to fantasies. Now, I'm more reality-based."
"As a sexual creature, I've been attracted to a lot of different types, people that others have thought were unattractive," she continued. "But showing kindness and humor are the most important things to me now. If you have those qualities then I think that makes you attractive."
