KEY POINTS:
LOS ANGELES - Actress Kim Basinger has hired a bodyguard for her 11-year-old daughter after a voicemail tirade by her father, actor Alec Baldwin, was made public last week, Basinger's spokeswoman said today.
The divorced couple's bitter six-year custody battle over their only daughter, Ireland, burst into the open last week when the celebrity website TMZ.com posted a recording of a blistering phone message Baldwin had left the child, calling her a "rude, thoughtless little pig."
The 49-year-old actor, who co-stars as a venal, egocentric TV executive on the sitcom 30 Rock, said on the tape that he was furious at not being able to reach his daughter for a prearranged telephone conversation, and threatened to fly out from New York City "to straighten your a** out."
Baldwin later apologized for his temper with a statement on his own website, and accused his ex-wife of leaking the voice mail tape to the media in defiance of a court order sealing material related to their custody proceedings.
But Basinger's spokeswoman, Annett Wolf, issued a statement today denying the actress released the voice mail and said the recording was "not sealed under a court order."
"Kim did hire security in response to the media attention on her daughter in order to allow Ireland to maintain her regular routine and activities uninterrupted," Wolf said.
Her statement added that Basinger hoped Baldwin would "finally address his unstable and irrational behavior so he, at some point, can potentially create a relationship with his daughter."
TMZ reported that a Los Angeles County Superior Court commissioner temporarily suspended Baldwin's visitation rights last week after hearing the tape.
Representatives for Basinger, 53, who won the Oscar for her supporting role in the 1997 film LA Confidential, declined to comment on that report, and Baldwin's lawyer was not immediately available for comment.
The couple married in 1993, and she filed for divorce in 2001. The divorce was granted the following year, but they have continued to fight in court over custody and other issues.
- REUTERS/Nielsen
