Dear Kim Basinger,

Please stop driving Alec Baldwin batshit crazy. Pretty please? We’re sure you have your reasons, but despite all that, and perhaps because of it, he is a deeply funny man. He makes lot of people laugh, hard to be exact. The world needs men like him. Most of us don’t have much these days, and when you get right down to it, for a lot of us laughter is all we got. We don’t ask for much, just this: please don’t kill the funny.

Sincerely,

The Phawker

PREVIOUSLY: Baldwin’s bizarre outburst capped a day that began at 12:55 a.m., when he was rushed to Lenox Hill Hospital after his 14-year-old daughter, Ireland, dialed 911, sources said. “I’m tired of this,” Baldwin said, his daughter told the dispatcher. “I’m going to take some pills. I’m going to end this.” When cops arrived at Baldwin’s pad on Central Park West, the actor told them he took an Ambien sleeping pill and had “no intention” of committing suicide, sources said. Baldwin, who is due to emcee the Oscars on March 7, told cops he and Ireland had been arguing over the phone and that his daughter was “put up” to dial 911 by her mom, actress Kim Basinger, sources said. Still, cops had Baldwin checked out and doctors released him after deciding he was no threat to himself, sources said. When the “30 Rock” star returned home, he found reporters on his doorstep. “This is another example of Kim’s sickness,” a buddy of Baldwin’s told the Daily News. “Alec came back from the hospital and there were cameras outside his house at 2 a.m. Gee, I wonder how they found out?” MORE

RELATED: Then, in April of last year—not long after he finished shooting the first season of “30 Rock”—Baldwin left a voice mail on his daughter’s cell phone. “I am tired of playing this game with you,” he said, and his voice rose to a shout. “I’m leaving this message with you to tell you that you have insulted me for the last time.” She had made him “feel like shit,” he said, adding, “You’ve made me feel like a fool over and over and over again.” He referred to Basinger as a “thoughtless pain in the ass” and to Ireland as a “rude, thoughtless little pig.”

Baldwin had spent a week with Ireland in February, and another week in March. But, in the days leading up to the voice mail, he had not been able to reach her on the phone, despite an arrangement decided in court: four scheduled calls a week. He told me, “One thing people don’t understand: I had lived my life for years a certain way. That is, always having a seat on the aisle when I go to the theatre, because I had to make my court-appointed phone call at a certain time. I mean, the hoops that I jumped through. So, once again: I was in a restaurant having dinner with my friends”—at Shun Lee, near Lincoln Center—“and I’m watching the clock and I get up and I can’t get a signal, and I walk out into the street and, once again, for the tenth day, there’s not even a ring—it goes right to voice mail. It’s not even turned on, and I freak out—it was wrong, I’m sorry I did that—I freak out.”

One evening a week later, the message was posted at TMZ.com, an online celebrity-gossip site. (Baldwin is sure that Basinger was responsible for the leak; she has denied it.) The next morning, it was a news story. Not long after that, near the subway station at Seventy-second Street and Broadway, a woman shouted at Baldwin, “Why don’t you call your fucking daughter, you fucking asshole?”

“When the tape came out, I wanted to die,” Baldwin said. “I wanted to die, literally. I didn’t want to live anymore. Every night, I’d say my prayers”—Baldwin is still a churchgoer—“and I’d say, ‘Please don’t let me wake up in the morning. I don’t want to do this anymore.’ ” MORE

[Portrait by CHUCK CLOSE]

MSNBC: Former President Bill Clinton was hospitalized Thursday in New York City after experiencing chest pains, according to a spokesman. “Today President Bill Clinton was admitted to the Columbia Campus of New York Presbyterian Hospital after feeling discomfort in his chest,” adviser Doug Band said in a statement. “Following a visit to his cardiologist, he underwent a procedure to place two stents in one of his coronary arteries.” “President Clinton is in good spirits, and will continue to focus on the work of his Foundation and Haiti’s relief and long-term recovery efforts,” said Band.

NEW YORK TIMES:  Mr. Clinton’s health has been a concern ever since the 2004 heart operation. By his own account, he had never been entirely the same. “It changed me,” he told The New York Times last year. “One of the things I noticed is that on normal days ever since I had that heart surgery, I’m a lot more laid back and a lot more relaxed and a lot more healthy. “But I also noticed since I had the surgery – and this is what you picked up in the campaign – that if I’m really tired, it’s more difficult for me than it was when I was back in politics before I had the heart problem. I have no explanation for why that is. I’m just observing it. It’s neither an excuse for any mistake I made or anything else. I’m just explaining. It’s something I’ve noticed. My life has changed.” MORE

ALSO: As Sarah Palin marks her birthday, a new national poll indicates that 7 out of 10 Americans feel that she is not qualified to be president. According to an ABC News/Washington Post survey, 71 percent of the public say the former Alaska governor is not qualified to serve in the White House, with 26 percent saying the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee is qualified to be president. The 26 percent who say Palin is qualified is down 12 points from an ABC News/Washington Post poll from November. Twenty-eight percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey from November indicated that Palin was qualified, with 7 in 10 feeling she was not qualified to be president. The ABC News/Washington Post poll, released Thursday morning as Palin marks her 46th birthday, also indicates that even a majority of Republicans now view Palin as not qualified to serve as commander-in-chief. According to the survey, 45 percent of conservatives see her as qualified, down 21 points from last November. MORE

WASHINGTON POST: HONOLULU — Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh was brought by ambulance to a hospital here on Wednesday after experiencing chest pains, according to a local television station. Limbaugh has been staying a short distance from the Obamas, at the Kahala Hotel & Resort, according to local news accounts. The conservative radio host was spotted on a golf course next to his hotel earlier in the week. KITV reported that Limbaugh was taken Wednesday afternoon from the resort in serious condition and transported him to the Queens Medical Center in Honolulu. MORE

BUSINESS WEEK: Rush Limbaugh, the conservative U.S. talk radio host, is “resting comfortably” in a Honolulu hospital after suffering chest pains, his program said in a statement. Limbaugh, whose show is heard on about 600 radio stations, was admitted to the hospital yesterday, according to the statement. He “appreciates your prayers and well wishes,” it said. Paramedics took Limbaugh, 58, to Queen’s Medical Center after responding to a 2:41 p.m. call at the Kahala Hotel and Resort, the Honolulu-based television station KITV said on its Web site. He was sitting in a chair in his ninth-floor hotel room when emergency crews arrived and told them he was taking medication for a back problem, the station said. MORE

UPDATE: “As I entered, Rush was standing holding his chest, red face, sweating, all the makings of a heart attack,” Rogers wrote. “I said, ‘Oh my God,’ and sat him down telling him the ambulance is on the way. Within minutes the hotel managers and security team were in the room. The pain was worsening and the scene was extremely scary. I kept reassuring Rush that the ambulance was on the way. The (hotel) security staff . . . put Rush on the floor and gave him an aspirin. His symptoms continued to escalate and we were all very scared. The paramedics arrived and began to evaluate Rush on the floor. He was administered nitro(glycerin) and we were rushed to Queen’s Medical Center.” MORE

]]> https://phawker.com/2009/12/31/karma-limbaugh-rushed-to-hospital-with-chest-pains/feed/ 0 https://phawker.com/2009/04/06/hard-luck-woman-farrah-fawcett-hospitalized/ https://phawker.com/2009/04/06/hard-luck-woman-farrah-fawcett-hospitalized/#comments Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:45:47 +0000 http://www.phawker.com/2009/04/06/hard-luck-woman-farrah-fawcett-hospitalized/

BBC NEWS:  Farrah Fawcett, who has been battling cancer for almost three years, has been admitted to a Los Angeles hospital, according to reports. The 62-year-old Charlie’s Angels star has been in an unidentified hospital since Thursday, People magazine said. A spokesman for the actress has not yet commented on her condition. Diagnosed with anal cancer in September 2006, Fawcett declared herself cancer-free four months later, only to have the disease return in May 2007. She shared her experiences of battling the disease with footage she released to the media in 2008. Her big TV break came in 1976 when producer Aaron Spelling cast her in Charlie’s Angels as one of the crime-fighting heroines. Separately, Los Angeles police say the star’s 24-year-old son with actor Ryan O’Neal has been arrested on a drug charge just months after he and his father were charged with drug possession. Redmond O’Neal was arrested on suspicion of bringing drugs into a jail and is currently being held on $25,000 (£17,000) bail. He was previously arrested in September and charged with possession of methamphetamine while on probation for a previous drug conviction. MORE

PHAWKER: We’ve secretly had a crush on her since 1976. Figured it was time to finally come clean. Get well soon, Farrah. Wish you were here.