The death of a cinematographer when Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun is not the first time the American movie star has made headlines for reasons not related to his acting.

Halyna Hutchins, 42, was killed and Joel Souza, 48, injured when Baldwin fired the weapon while filming a western, called Rust, in Sante Fe, New Mexico.

Famed for his Hollywood roles and personal drama the 63-year-old is the eldest of four brothers, all of whom work in the entertainment industry – and he is arguably the most well-known of the family.

He rose to fame in CBS primetime soap opera Knots Landing.

After a number of film roles, he won two Emmys for his role as Jack Donaghy on NCB sitcom 30 Rock, in which he starred opposite Tina Fey.

However, the father-of-seven has sometimes been seen as hot-headed and offensive and is no stranger to controversy.

Sky News looks at some of the more controversial moments of his life.

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Marriage, divorce, and voicemails

In May 1990, Baldwin met actress Kim Basinger on the set of The Marrying Men. The couple were married for nine years and involved in a bitter and protracted court battle before divorcing in 2002.

In 2007, Baldwin left an angry voicemail on his 11-year-old daughter’s phone, in which he called her a “thoughtless, little pig”.

The voicemail was leaked after being included in a sealed court file regarding Baldwin and Basinger’s custody battle.

At the time of the message, Ireland lived with her mother and failed to answer a call from her father.

“You are a rude, thoughtless little pig. You don’t have the brains or the decency as a human being,” Baldwin said in the message.

“I don’t give a damn that you’re 12 years old, or 11 years old, or that you’re a child, or that your mother is a thoughtless pain in the a** who doesn’t care about what you do as far as I’m concerned,” he added.

The 59-year-old actor apologised, attributing it to the grief of being “alienated as a father” and admitted having suicidal thoughts after it was made public.

He is now married to yoga teacher Hilaria Thomas, with whom he has six children.

Assaults and arrests

In October 1995, Baldwin allegedly assaulted a photographer who was videotaping his ex-wife with their three-day-old daughter as they returned home from hospital.

Baldwin later had to pay damages to the celebrity snapper after he broke his glasses and nose and sprayed his truck with shaving cream.

In 2013, police were called after he was apparently involved in an altercation with a professional photographer outside his apartment in New York City.

It happened days after his second wife, Hilaria, had given birth to the couple’s first daughter.

“All I can say is I was doing my job asking him normal questions and he flipped. That’s all,” the man told TMZ.

His late-night talk show “Up Late with Alec Baldwin” was also axed in 2013 after he apologised for homophobic comments made during the confrontation.

In 2014 he was arrested for riding a bicycle the wrong way down a New York street, police said.

He also pleaded guilty to harassment and agreed to take an anger management class following a dispute over a parking space in 2019.

Saturday Night Live

The actor made a push towards a career in comedy when he took over playing Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live, with his impressions earning him a huge fan following and the scorn of the former US president.

Mr Trump appeared to take issue, tweeting at the time: “The Baldwin impersonation just can’t get any worse”.

Baldwin said the show, which earned him his third Emmy, helped revive his comedy career.

Airline trouble

Baldwin was thrown off a flight from Los Angeles to New York in 2011 after he refused to stop playing the game Word with Friends on his smartphone.

While waiting for take-off, Baldwin allegedly verbally assaulted the flight attendant before being removed from the plane.

He later vented his anger on Twitter, likening the attitude of staff to “retired Catholic school gym teachers from the 1950s”.

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Counterfeit artwork

In 2016 Baldwin sued a gallery owner, claiming she had defrauded him in 2010 by selling him a counterfeit painting.

The case reportedly ended with the owner paying the star a seven-figure settlement.

Twitter

He briefly stepped away from Twitter after comments he made about Rose McGowan and Harvey Weinstein were criticised – with accusations of victim-blaming.

He had told PBS NewsHour that women who accepted financial settlements from Weinstein to keep quiet about alleged sexual harassment may have delayed justice.

Baldwin announced again in 2021 he was leaving Twitter, saying “haters” misunderstood his joke about Gillian Anderson’s accent.

It came after his fitness instructor wife was engulfed in a social media storm after it was claimed she had spent years faking a Spanish accent.

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