Actor Alec Baldwin is being sued by the family of a Marine killed in a suicide bombing during the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan in August, Insider reported on Thursday.
The relatives of Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum said in the lawsuit seeking $25 million in damages that Baldwin, 63, defamed them on Instagram as ''insurrectionists'' after he learned the Marine's sister had been in Washington, D.C., during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
The lawsuit described the comments made by Baldwin as ''false, outrageous, defamatory, irresponsible, vindictive, and caused — and continue to cause — Plaintiffs severe emotional distress.''
McCollum's two sisters, Roice and Cheyenne McCollum, and his widow, Jiennah McCollum, filed the lawsuit on Monday in U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming.
Baldwin had donated $5,000 to Jiennah McCollum ''as a tribute to a fallen soldier'' after 20-year-old Rylee McCollum and 13 other service members were killed in an attack on Aug. 26 at the Kabul airport.
On Jan. 3, 2022, however, Baldwin posted about Roice McCollum after she shared a ''throwback'' photo of a crowd of supporters of then-President Donald Trump in front of the Washington Monument on Jan. 6, 2021, the suit said.
''Are you the same woman that I sent the $ to for your sister's husband who was killed during the Afghanistan exit?'' Baldwin commented on his Instagram account.
The lawsuit then alleged that he shared a post on his Instagram account ranting about Roice, and within seconds she received ''hostile, aggressive, hateful messages from Baldwin's followers,'' including one message telling her to ''get raped and die.''
The McCollum lawsuit serves as the most recent one Baldwin faces after being at the center of the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of ''Rust,'' People magazine reported.
Baldwin, who acted in and produced ''Rust,'' has been sued by two film crew members in separate lawsuits, along with several co-producers.
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