Baldwin, Basinger trade blows in custody battle
Sarah Hall

NEW YORK—Alec Baldwin has called off his custody truce with Kim Basinger and reignited the bitter battle between the duelling ex-twosome. The celeb duo had a showdown Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court over the terms of custody for their 10-year-old daughter, Ireland, during which Baldwin’s lawyer accused Basinger of turning the child against her father.
Basinger attended the hearing, but did not speak. Baldwin was absent and was in New York, his lawyer said. The hearing was originally set to discuss Baldwin’s telephone time with his daughter and whether he was entitled to an extra weekend with Ireland if a holiday spent with her mother interrupted his court-ordered custody schedule.
Basinger’s lawyer argued that holidays were a lose-lose situation for both parents, with each occasionally missing time with their daughter, and that Baldwin’s schedule should not be shifted as a result. “It’s not just a tweaking,” attorney Neal Hersh said of Baldwin’s request. “It is a change increasing his time.” Superior Court Commissioner Maren E. Nelson said she saw no reason to alter the custody agreement with a respect to those issues. “There’s trade-offs here,” she said.
Baldwin and Basinger previously reached an agreement in March 2004 to share custody of Ireland, after a judge ruled in Baldwin’s favour on the matter. Prior to the agreement, Basinger had custody of the child on the West Coast, while Baldwin, an East Coast dweller, had limited visitation rights. However, Baldwin has been less than satisfied with the terms of the agreement and even filed a police report against Basinger last month after he went to pick up Ireland for a scheduled visit and found that neither the child nor his ex-wife was at home.
The actor has complained in court documents that Basinger has been deliberately trying to turn Ireland against him because she is still bitter over their divorce. The twosome were married from 1993 until 2000, and Basinger filed for divorce in 2001. “Ms. Basinger has so contaminated this child now that she doesn’t even want to be with her father,” Baldwin’s lawyer, Vicki Greene, said Monday in court.
In his filing, Baldwin also suggested that Basinger has been unwilling to accommodate his professional schedule, despite the fact that her own day-to-day routine is somewhat less taxing: “[Baldwin] lives and works in two states and often has professional commitments in other states,” the court papers filed by Baldwin’s legal team state. “[Basinger] has dramatically fewer professional and non-professional commitments as compared to [Baldwin].
“Although [Baldwin] would not venture to change dates to negatively impact [Basinger’s] schedule, he finds that [Basinger] often has no schedule at all.” Further fuelling the flames, Baldwin reportedly demanded that Basinger undergo a psychological evaluation to determine her mental state with regard to the custody dispute, according to Extra.
The papers suggest that Basinger needs therapy, due to her “pathological need” to alienate Ireland from her father. According to Baldwin, Ireland “lives in a constant state of tension wherein she must never display or divulge her true feelings for her father because of the mother’s all-consuming and bitter feelings toward me.”
On Monday, Nelson said she was willing to rule that Baldwin was entitled to an extra three days with Ireland, due to the visit she missed with Baldwin in September, but Greene said that the actor was not willing to fly to Los Angeles for a visit until Basinger sought counselling. Outside court, Hersh commented on Baldwin’s allegations against Basinger.
“I found it very disturbing that Mr. Baldwin’s lawyers attempted to cast terrible aspersions toward Kim rather than focusing on the main issue, which was before the court today, which is his daughter, Ireland,” Hersh said. Stay tuned for the next round in the Baldwin-Basinger custody saga—we’re sure there’s plenty more to come.