Alec Baldwin has criticised cancel culture and defended Woody Allen and New York governor Andrew Cuomo in a lengthy new Instagram video.

In the 14-minute video, Baldwin said he has experienced “a few people going at me for defending people who have been accused of crimes…” to which he said: “Well, I’m not defending someone who is guilty of something. I’m choosing to defend someone who has not been proven guilty of something.”

The actor then appeared to specifically address the case of Allen, whose alleged abuse of his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow is discussed in the new HBO documentary Allen v Farrow, and Cuomo, who has been accused of sexual abuse by five different women in recent weeks.

After criticising the Allen documentary on his now-deleted Twitter account last month (“Who needs courtrooms or rule of law when we have trial by media?” he wrote) Baldwin again defended the director, saying: “I don’t care how many fucking documentaries you make, you have to prove it in a court room.”

Regarding Cuomo, he added: “The Attorney General is going to investigate accusations against a Governor. Then, and only then, can we talk about people resigning.”

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Going on to criticise cancel culture further, Baldwin added: “The cancel culture thing has revved up during COVID. [People] have a lot of times on their hands… They want to get on their computer and they want to take on people like me and they want to say every horrible thing that you can possibly imagine about defending someone whose been accused of a crime.

“The COVID has exacerbated everything bad in our society. People are angry and bitter. They’re pissed off.”

He added: “If it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt that this person was guilty, I would certainly be open to changing my tune and even apologising to victims.

“I’m all in favour of tough laws on people who sexual harass or abuse, but it has to be proven.”

Earlier this week, Baldwin deleted his Twitter account following a backlash to a tweet he posted about Gillian Anderson.

This week, Baldwin tweeted a link to a CNN story titled ‘Gillian Anderson’s American accent throws some people off’, referencing Anderson speaking in her natural American accent at last week’s Golden Globes, despite usually speaking with a British accent in her roles.

After tweeting out the story and adding the caption: “Switching accents ? That sounds…fascinating,” users criticised Baldwin for what they deemed to be an unnecessary and spiteful comment.

Saying he’s “huge fan” of Anderson’s, Baldwin said: “But I find that, of course, on Twitter, which is where all the assholes in the United States and beyond go to get their advanced degrees in assholiness, that I had used it as a news aggregator.