Alec Baldwin has deactivated his Twitter account following reaction to a joke he made about "switching accents".

The 30 Rock actor's wife, Hilaria, sparked controversy in December after she was accused of faking her Spanish accent and heritage.

Earlier this week, Baldwin commented on US actress Gillian Anderson's Golden Globes win for portraying British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

"Switching accents? That sounds... fascinating," he had joked.

His post came after some viewers of the ceremony expressed surprise that Anderson's real-life accent was American, rather than the British accent she deploys in Netflix's The Crown.
'Abject hatred'

In an Instagram video, Baldwin said he was leaving Twitter because some users had not understood the irony behind his comment about Anderson.

"Of course you can't do any irony on Twitter, you can't do irony in the United States anymore because the United States is such an uptight, stressed-out place and such an unpleasant place right now," he said.

The actor added he was a "huge fan" of Anderson and his comment was intended to "illustrate the point that multicultural expressions of anyone, whatever country, language, music, food, clothing, art, whatever of those expressions are important to you, that's your business".

He continued: "Twitter is one-third interesting posts... one-third tedious, uninteresting, puerile nonsense, and then it's one-third, or more maybe, just abject hatred and malice and unpleasantness."

The star said he planned to "find another news aggregation source" and thanked Instagram users for their support.

Baldwin may not be gone for good, however, as Twitter accounts can be reactivated within 30 days.

Celebrities often leave Twitter temporarily in order to avoid being abused during a personal controversy.

Baldwin also deactivated his account on the platform at the height of the controversy surrounding his wife.

Hilaria Baldwin, a yoga teacher and influencer, was accused last year of misleading people over her heritage, after it emerged she was born in Boston and was originally named Hillary.

It was claimed she had faked a Spanish accent throughout her career. Some people who knew her when she was young claimed she did not use a Spanish accent in high school.

But Ms Baldwin defended herself in December, explaining she grew up bilingual and the family split their time between Boston and Spain. She said her family often spoke Spanish at home in the US, cooked Spanish food and had Spanish visitors.

Ms Baldwin explained that her accent could change because she regularly switched between Spanish and English, adding that she mixed the two when she got "nervous or upset".

Her parents and older brother now live in Mallorca and Ms Baldwin said she and her husband are raising their children to be bilingual.