One of the it-couples of the 1990s was definitely Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin. They looked madly in love, welcomed a beautiful daughter, and it all looked good until their messy divorce in the early 2000s. Since then, there has been a lot of back and forth, and apparently they weren’t on good terms; until now.
Sources recently told InTouch Weekly that they’re friendly again.
“It’s pretty wild to see how far Alec and Kim have come, for anyone that knows how ugly their divorce got and how ice cold they were for so many years after — it’s just amazing to see them now on such good terms,” the source said to the outlet. “Alec worked very hard to earn Kim’s forgiveness. He really owned up to all his mistakes and admitted to her that pretty well everything that went wrong in their marriage was his fault.”
“Obviously, the main thing tying them together is their daughter Ireland, but they also go so far back, she knows so much of his history, his family, they have a shorthand, it’s really helpful for Alec to have Kim to talk to when he’s going through it,” they added. “It’s a two-way street, when Kim needs something, she can call on Alec and she’s also gotten close to Hilaria Baldwin. They’re not spending holidays together or having lunch dates, but they are a family unit, albeit an unconventional one.”
Like we said, the La Confidential star and Baldwin were an it-couple, but also a scandalous one. Here’s what we know: they met on the set of the 1990 film The Marrying Man. They instantly hit it off, and got married on August 19, 1993. However, per NYMag, they actually broke up briefly the year prior when Basinger learned Baldwin had dinner with his ex-fiancée.
They welcomed their daughter Ireland in 1995.
Then, in 2001, Basinger filed for divorce, calling him “a tin-pot tyrant and bully,” alleging “irreconcilable differences” to be the reason for their divorce. They both accused one another of alcohol abuse. She filed for sole custody, per NYMag. Their divorce was finalized in 2002, with Baldwin agreeing to go to anger therapy, parenting school and to restrict phone calls to Ireland to a small amount a day.
Baldwin later claimed that Basinger wasn’t allowing this to happen, and not even a year later, the infamous phone call leaked where Baldwin called his young daughter a “little pig,” saying, “You don’t have the brains or the decency as a human being … I am going to get on a plane and I am going to come out there for the day and I am going to straighten your ass out when I see you … I’m going to let you know just how I feel about what a rude, thoughtless little pig you really are.”
In his 2008 book, A Promise to Ourselves: A Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce, Baldwin chronicled the seven-year custody, claiming Basinger spent over $1.5 million to deny him parental access.
Since then, they have both spoken out about their divorce and past relationship. In Feb 2025, she spoke with Variety about where they stand, saying she has “great respect” for him.
“Alec and I have a great relationship. I have great respect for where he is today, and his family,” she said. “You know, we don’t spend Christmases and holidays or see each other very much. But we talk.”
As for Baldwin, during his show The Baldwins via People, he spoke about the divorce, and the regrettable decisions he made.
“I must say that because my relationship with my daughter Ireland was so negatively impacted by my divorce from her mother and having a very protracted custody battle that the media really were having a party about everything. [It] went on for seven years, of which the financials were probably a year and a half and then everything else was custody….One of my most regrettable things about the whole thing was how it affected Ireland.”
Before you go, click here to see whose net worth is higher in these celebrity couples.
