Alec Baldwin Pulls Out of Emmys After Fox Yanks His Rupert Murdoch Joke

Alec Baldwin is going to skip out on the Emmys tonight, after Fox axed his joke about Rupert Murdoch that might have hit too close to home.

Baldwin was slated to use his low-talking charms to play a fictional TV executive in the opening video for the Emmys tonight. But News Corp-owned Fox didn't like his joke about the company's phone-hacking scandal, according to Deadline Hollywood.

Fox told the website that it decided to cut the line, because News Corp "takes the phone-hacking allegations very seriously and did not want to be seen as making light of them."

The opening video was re-filmed with Star Trek's Leonard Nimoy and without the phone-hacking joke and Baldwin.

Baldwin hinted at the disagreement over the line three days ago on Twitter: "I did a short Emmy pretape a few days ago. Now they tell me NewsCorp may cut the funniest line. #NewsCorphumorlessaswellascorrupt"

He added today: "I understand NewsCorp killing that joke." Then he continued: "If I were enmeshed in a scandal where I hacked phones of families of innocent crime victims purely 4 profit, I'd want that 2 go away, 2."

The actor is nominated for an Emmy for his role as Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock. He said he plans to see Tony Bennett perform tonight at the Met.