Alec Baldwin quits Twitter after his Gillian Anderson accent joke backfires

Baldwin fumed after his joke about Gillian Anderson's British and American accents reminded people that his influencer wife is mired in scandal over her use of a Spanish accent.

Alec Baldwin announced Wednesday he has left Twitter, saying it’s full of  “a-holes” who don’t appreciate that he was using “irony” when he made a joke about Gillian Anderson’s fluctuating American and British accents after she won a Golden Globe award Sunday night.

Baldwin apparently is mad that his joke reminded people that his influencer wife is mired in a controversy over using a fluctuating American and Spanish accent for more than 10 years to mislead people about being Spanish.

The famously testy “30 Rock” star fumed in an Instagram video, saying Twitter is where “all the a–holes in the United States and beyond go to get their advanced degrees in a–holines.”

Baldwin, 62, added: “You can’t do any irony in the United States anymore because the United States is such an uptight, stressed out place.”

For the record, Anderson does goes back and forth in using American and British accents, but the actor, who is American, has been upfront in interviews about how her fluctuating accents are usually unintended and the product of spending her childhood in the U.K. and living in London since 2002.

Baldwin’s Anderson kerfuffle started earlier in the day when he responded to news about her using an American accent when she accepted a supporting actress Golden Globe  award for “The Crown.”

“Switching accents? That sounds … fascinating,” Baldwin tweeted.

It appears that Baldwin was trying to make light of the fact that Hilaria Baldwin’s Spanish heritage controversy started because people on Twitter noticed that she sometimes used a Spanish accent in interviews and on her mom podcast.

Baldwin was missing the real irony in his wisecrack — his influencer wife, unlike Anderson, has been anything but upfront about her background.

While Hilaria Baldwin, 37, claimed she never lied about being born in Boston, Twitter sleuths found multiple examples of the yoga instructor and mom podcaster allowing interviewers for Spanish-language publications — and even officials at a United Nations session — to say she was born in Spain or to call her “half-Spanish.” She also regularly talked about being “from Spain” or growing up there, or about all the family she has there. Alec Baldwin also pushed the Spanish identity narrative by imitating her Spanish accent in a 2013 interview with David Letterman.

Hilaria Baldwin initially blamed the media for falsely reporting on her birthplace. Later, she apologized for not being “more clear” about how she described her affinity to American and Spanish cultures.

People replying to Alec Baldwin’s Gillian Anderson tweet pointed out the differences between her actions and his wife’s.

“The difference is Gillian lived in London during her childhood and lives there so an accent developed. She’s never denied her Americanism. Big fan of yours, but this is an awful take,” one person wrote.

Another said: “Hillary said she has never lied about being born in Boston, and she said she has always been truthful and everyone ‘misunderstood her upbringing’ — well, why she didn’t correct a United Nations official then? I was an AB fan too, but not anymore after this.”

Baldwin’s blow-up over Gillian Anderson comes two days after he and Hilaria shocked fans by announcing that they had welcomed a sixth child into their family — five months after Hilaria gave birth to their fifth child, Eduardo. Now the Baldwins have six children under the age of 8. The new daughter Lucia, like her five siblings, also has a Spanish name.

Amid this amazing new responsibility that most parents find all-consuming, Alec Baldwin found time to get into a social media fuss about the “X-Files” actor and her accents.

In his 10-minute video, which he recorded while driving, Baldwin vowed to apologize privately to her.

“When I made that comment about people switching cultures, if you will, it was in no way meant to be derogatory toward someone who I admire,” Baldwin said.

Baldwin also engaged in another social media fuss this week when he lashed out at people on his Instagram account who questioned whether Lucia was born via surrogate (she was, People magazine confirmed).

One commenter dared to suggest that the Baldwins were trying to generate “clickbait” by regularly posting news and photos of their “100 kids” and initially saying they wouldn’t reveal details about Lucia’s birth.

“If you don’t want to say anything — why don’t you both stop constantly posting and begging for clickbait,” the commenter said.

Baldwin fired back: “You should shut the (expletive) up and mind your own business.”

In his Instagram video about leaving Twitter, Baldwin praised Instagram for being a friendlier social media platform. For divisive celebrities such as Baldwin, it can be because, unlike Twitter, it allows them to delete negative comments, or to disallow any comments at all. Hilaria Baldwin has turned off her Instagram comments.

Baldwin also emphasized his love for Hilaria Baldwin and all his children, saying “I’ve never been happier in my entire life and I owe that to Hilaria.”