Speaking of irrelevant has-been Hollywood stars …Okay, we really weren’t speaking of any, but Kirstie Alley would be the headliner if we were. The story wouldn’t just be about her derailed career, though, but more about her continued incendiary right-winged antics on Twitter and her unwavering support for Donald Trump.
The former Cheers star and previous Jenny Craig spokesperson is currently getting dragged on Twitter, AGAIN, for tweets that have been called out as racially insensitive. The backlash occurred over Alley’s response to news that the Academy Awards has implemented a new diversity requirement for any films vying for the Best Picture honor.
The Academy’s new guidelines go into effect in 2024, but as for now in 2020, Alley let it be known (initially) that she was not down with Hollywood’s effort to diversify. In all her vitriolic, white-privileged, Scientology-worshipping weirdness, Alley tweeted,
“This is a disgrace to artists everywhere. Can you imagine telling Picasso what had to be in his f*cking paintings. You people have lost your minds. Control artists, control individual thought… OSCAR ORWELL.”
Let that sink in, an industry award ceremony marred every year by the hashtag #Oscarsowhite, is making an effort to bring more diversity to the Academy Awards community. However, to Alley, 69 years old, such an action is a “disgrace.”
Her position on diversity should come as no surprise to anyone who has engaged with her on Twitter – and I have (It wasn’t pretty, she came after me, I dragged her for filth, it got ugly, I had to block her). Trump-praising tweets and detached-from-reality accolades for his “excellent handling” of the Coronavirus pandemic play like Kirstie Alley’s greatest hits on her Twitter feed. Yea, she’s that delusional.
Twitter was having none of her anti-diversity rantings though and quickly went for her jugular. I assume that’s why shortly after that, she deleted the tweet, but posted another one in its place,
“I’ve been in the motion picture Academy for 40 years. The Academy celebrates freedom of UNBRIDLED artistry expressed through movies. The new RULES to qualify for Best Picture are dictatorial.. anti-artist.. Hollywood you’re swinging so far left you’re bumping into your own a**.”
This tweet only made matters worse for Alley and drew the ire of celebrated Hollywood Director Ava Duvernay. If GIFs could talk, Duvernay’s would have told Alley a mouthful. The shade was not subtle at all as she responded to Alley’s diatribe with an animated GIF of a Black man slamming the door in a white man’s face. Ouch!
Alley’s response was measured, which made me think somebody must have told her how much power Ava Duvernay, a woman of color, has in Hollywood. In the critically acclaimed “When they see us” about the Central Park 5 rape case, Duvernay’s masterful storytelling solidified her as one of the film industry’s most celebrated creators. In other words, Alley may need her for a job one day.
Alley’s response to Duvernay’s slammed door GIF, was a haha emoji and the following,
“I ask you to explore my record of diversity and inclusion in anything I’ve produced and throughout my life. I’m not perfect but have fought for human and civil rights for 50 years. I just don’t agree [with] mandated, impossible to ‘police’ quotas as a prerequisite [for] a ‘best’ picture.”
🤣But I ask you to explore my record of diversity & inclusion in anything I’ve produced & throughout my life. I’m not perfect but have fought for human & civil rights for 50 years. I just don’t agree w mandated, impossible to “police” quotas as a prerequisite 4 a “best” picture🤷♀️ https://t.co/PZy4QMZcEu
— Kirstie Alley (@kirstiealley) September 9, 2020
This is a typical, “I’m not racist, because my neighbor is black” kind of response, and in Alley’s case, it rings especially hollow.
I deleted my first tweet about the new rules for best movie OSCARS because I feel it was a poor analogy & misrepresented my viewpoint. I am 100% behind diversity inclusion & tolerance. I’m opposed to MANDATED ARBITRARY percentages relating to hiring human beings in any business.
— Kirstie Alley (@kirstiealley) September 9, 2020
She tried to explain herself more but it just got messier.
If I hadn’t blocked her years ago, I would pose this question directly: Kirstie, how can you claim to be a champion of “diversity and inclusion” but continue to throw your support behind Donald Trump, a proven enemy of the LGBTQ who willfully rolls back gay rights protections and attempts to ban transgender soldiers?
Also, what kind of record of “diversity and inclusion” are you boasting about while supporting an administration that separates babies and small children from refugee parents seeking asylum at our borders? How could you possibly be pro-civil rights while backing a maniacal racist like Donald J Trump, who, along with his father, was fined in 1975 for violating the Fair Housing Act? A sting operation revealed they were rejecting black apartment rental applicants based solely on their skin color and keeping a rejection folder marked “C” for “colored.”
Honestly, to me, Alley hasn’t been relevant since Cheers anyway, and even then, I only tolerated her because I had the hots for Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson. As for now, her recent claim to fame is as a bizarre, has-been, misfit housemate on Big Brother. In her real-life, she’s right-winged whack-ado who comes off like a cantankerous old lady, existing in a perpetual state of “Get off my lawn!” She wants to have it both ways but people like her need to get called out for talking out of both sides of their mouths. You can’t be a Trump supporter and claim to be for diversity. That’s an oxymoron, period.
Alley continued her Twitter debacle in a continuous string of tweets that attempted to undo how hideously she presented herself in her initial posts –but to no avail. You have to read the madness for yourself to get into the full crazy of this woman but one of my favorite replies to Alley came from @exavierpope:
It’s stunning white people still treat equality like its oppression
— 𝐄𝐱𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐫 𝐏𝐨𝐩𝐞 (@exavierpope) September 10, 2020
As for me and my sanity, I no longer reply to Kirstie Alley and I like her just the way she is, BLOCKED!
This piece is an opinion piece by one Contributing Writer for Instinct Magazine and may not reflect the opinion of the magazine or other Contributing Writers.
Never much liked her but her comments about PC censorship and the Cancel Culture are right on.