Update: Alec Baldwin has asked that a defamation lawsuit filed against him by the family of a fallen Marine be dismissed. Baldwin's lawyer said in the filing, per the AP, that "reposting a photo Roice (McCollum) herself publicly posted and then expressing a political opinion about it cannot be the basis for an intentional infliction claim." As for the other plaintiffs named in the suit, the attorney says they cannot be included since Baldwin made no statements about them. Our original story from Jan. 20, 2022, follows:
The family of a US Marine killed in the suicide bombing at the Kabul airport amid the US withdrawal from Afghanistan last year is now suing Alec Baldwin for $25 million, Fox News reports. They say Baldwin defamed and invaded the privacy of Roice McCollum, a sister of Marine Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum, by calling her an "insurrectionist" on his Instagram feed. Roice McCollum attended former President Trump's Jan. 6 rally last year, but she did not breach the US Capitol with other protesters that day, the family says, and after Baldwin's post, they were hit with "hundreds upon hundreds" of hateful and threatening messages. Rylee McCollum's widow and his other sister were similarly hit with vitriolic messages and even death threats, the lawsuit says; they have joined Roice McCollum in suing the actor, the Casper Star-Tribune reports.
As for Baldwin's link to Roice McCollum, he'd given her $5,000 last year to help her brother's widow, who gave birth to a daughter shortly after his death. Then, in January of this year, Roice McCollum posted a year-old photo of the Trump rally, and Baldwin saw it and sent her a private message. When she confirmed she'd been at the rally, the suit says, Baldwin told her "her activities resulted in the unlawful destruction of government property, the death of a law enforcement officer, an assault on the certification of the presidential election," and he reposted her photo to his own Instagram followers calling her an insurrectionist. "Baldwin plainly ignored Roice's denial of rioting and the assertion that she was cleared by the FBI for participating in any of the conduct Baldwin chose to falsely attribute to her via his massive following," the lawsuit says, noting that Roice McCollum "was never detained, arrested, accused of or charged with any crime."
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