Kim Basinger, Daughter Discuss Severe Anxiety Issues on ‘Red Table Talk’: “I Had To Relearn To Drive”

On today’s highly anticipated episode of Red Table Talk, Kim Basinger and her daughter Ireland Baldwin joined Willow Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Adrienne Banfield-Norris to discuss mental health, anxiety, and a little bit of Alec Baldwin.

In a sit-down with Willow Smith, Ireland Baldwin opened up about her lifelong battle with anxiety, eating disorders, and abusive relationships, as well as suicidal thoughts. Baldwin was candid about what it was like growing up in the shadow of two famous parents, and the constant (and often cruel) comparisons to her mother she endured, and how that led her down a path of disordered eating, panic attacks, and a desire to isolate herself from everyone she knew.

When Baldwin was at her lowest point, she says she was “tortur[ing] myself with my eating disorders, I didn’t talk to my parents for like a year,” and she says she felt “lifeless.” It was only when her cousin Alaia Baldwin (daughter to Stephen Baldwin, sister to Hailey) came to see her that she got help. “Alaia, she was the one who booked a ticket from New York, came to L.A. to see me,” Baldwin told Smith. “She was like, something is up, I sense something. She saved my life, I think I would have committed suicide or I would have been dead, for sure. I was so close. I was so close I could feel it getting to that point. And she saved my life. She pulled me out of it.”

Basinger addressed her own anxiety issues later at the signature Red Table, and explained that she spent many years being agoraphobic, unable to leave her home or even drive her car. “I wouldn’t leave the house. I would no longer go to dinner,” Basinger explained. “It’s like something just completely shuts down within you. I had to relearn to drive.”

After enduring a very public, acrimonious divorce from Alec Baldwin, Jada asked how Basinger dealt with both managing her anxiety and co-parenting Ireland with Baldwin. “Alec’s a funny one. We’re all fine, we all get along, whatever,” she said diplomatically, adding, “But he’s a challenge, I mean, come on. We’ve had our challenges. And I don’t think Alec was emotionally or mentally available for that kind of talk. Alec operates in a very different way in his life.” Though the conversation did not directly address the shooting on the set of Baldwin’s film, Rust, which left one woman dead, it touched on how he deals with his own mental health in light of recent events.

“He deals with anxiety greatly,” Ireland Baldwin said of her father. “But he’s someone who grew up in a family that would suppress that or tell him he was weak for feeling that way.”

“Put your big boy panties on!” Gammy interjected.

“He’s gotten way better,” Baldwin said. “I think he really suppressed his anxiety like, up until pretty recently, he’s really been dealing with things that kind of have been thrown at him, he’s been forced to finally deal with these things.”

You can watch the entire conversation on the Red Table Talk Facebook page now.

If you or someone you know needs help, call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You can also text HOME to 741-741 for free, 24-hour support from the Crisis Text Line. Outside of the U.S., please visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention for a database of resources.