Hollywood actress Kim Basinger made a rare public appearance in Los Angeles this week while running errands dressed in a hoodie and jeans.
The 72-year-old Oscar winner kept a low profile on Monday, wearing her blonde hair swept up into a bun with large black shades covering her features. She opted for a natural look without heavy makeup, carrying a bulging striped handbag and completing her outfit with black shoes.
Representatives for Basinger were contacted by the Daily Mail for comment regarding her outing.
Her public appearance follows recent comments from her daughter, Ireland Baldwin, who publicly criticized celebrity blogger Perez Hilton following his hospitalization, accusing him of having humiliated her family for years.
Early Life and Rise to Hollywood Fame
Born Kimila Ann Basinger in Georgia in 1953, the actress was raised in a show business family. Her father, Don Basinger, was a pianist and trumpeter during the Big Band Era. Her mother appeared in movies alongside Esther Williams, the competitive swimmer turned 1940s film star known as the bathing beauty for her synchronized swimming musical numbers.
Basinger began her career as a fashion model before transitioning to television acting in the 1970s. During that period, she turned down the role that ultimately went to Cheryl Ladd in the hit series Charlie's Angels.
Her breakthrough film role came in 1983 when she starred as a Bond girl in Never Say Never Again, which marked Sean Connery's final appearance as secret agent 007. The role launched a two-decade reign as one of Hollywood's leading stars.
In 1986, Basinger starred opposite Mickey Rourke in the erotic thriller 9 ½ Weeks, portraying an art gallerist involved in a sadomasochistic relationship with a Wall Street financier. While the movie flopped in American theaters upon release, its provocative themes made it a hit on home video, solidifying Basinger's stardom and establishing director Adrian Lyne as a master of the erotic thriller genre with subsequent hits like Fatal Attraction, Indecent Proposal, and Unfaithful.
Basinger later starred in director Tim Burton's 1989 superhero blockbuster Batman, playing photojournalist Vicki Vale alongside Michael Keaton as Batman and Jack Nicholson as the Joker.
Dramatic Success and Oscar Win
In 1992, Basinger returned to erotic thrillers in Final Analysis, playing a mobster's wife who engages in an affair with her sister's psychiatrist. The film co-starred Richard Gere as the therapist, Uma Thurman as the sister, and Eric Roberts, brother of Julia Roberts, as the cuckolded husband.
Basinger achieved critical acclaim in 1997 for her role in the neo-noir film LA Confidential, starring alongside Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, and Guy Pearce. Her performance earned her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
She revisited the erotic thriller genre in 2017 with Fifty Shades Darker, the sequel to Fifty Shades of Grey. Basinger played an older woman nicknamed Mrs Robinson who introduced lead character Christian Grey, played by Jamie Dornan, to sadomasochism at age 15.
Marriage to Alec Baldwin and High-Profile Divorce
Basinger met actor Alec Baldwin in 1991 while filming the romantic comedy The Marrying Man. The couple married two years later in 1993 and welcomed their daughter, Ireland Baldwin, in 1995.
The marriage collapsed in 2000, resulting in a contentious two-year divorce and custody fight. Following their separation, Kim's father Don Basinger blamed Baldwin's temper, telling People magazine: "Alec has this anger where he reaches down for something that hurts, something that may have happened a year or two ago, and then abuses Kim with it. But it’s when it started happening in front of Ireland that Kim finally said: 'Well, I’m not going to put up with that!'"
In 2007, when Ireland was 11 years old, Baldwin left a voicemail calling his daughter a "rude, thoughtless little pig" after she missed a phone call. The joint custody dispute eventually concluded after generating intense media attention and incurring $3 million in legal fees.
Ireland has since indicated she can laugh about the voicemail, while Basinger noted on Red Table Talk in 2022 that she and Baldwin are "all fine and we all get along, whatever." However, Basinger described Baldwin as "a challenge" who was not "emotionally or mentally available" for difficult discussions regarding Ireland's anxiety.
Agoraphobia Battle and Current Relationship
During her appearance on Red Table Talk, Basinger spoke openly about her struggle with agoraphobia, revealing that the anxiety disorder once left her unable to drive for "almost six, seven months."
On the romantic front, Basinger has been in a relationship with her hairdresser Mitch Stone since 2014. She told the Georgian Journal, a publication based in Tbilisi, that she and Stone had been friends for 20 years before their relationship became romantic.
