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BAD-BOY BALDWIN IN REHAB

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July 17, 2007 -- ACTOR Daniel Baldwin, who has had his hands on more crack and coke than a Colombian drug lord, is not only getting clean, but coming clean to Cynthia McFadden on tonight's riveting "Primetime: Family Secrets."

It's a full hour that focuses on the troubled star who gave "Primetime" access to his 90-day, ninth stint in rehab.

Rehab for most people caught breaking parole, being strung out in motel rooms near comatose, and getting busted behind the wheel of cars that aren't theirs and may or may not have been stolen, is jail. Unless you're famous. For stars like Baldwin, that means it's a $50,000 a month treatment center on the Pacific Ocean.

Given that, it's hard to feel really sorry for the guy who does his hard time in a Malibu- hoo-hoo home as he detoxes. Still, you've got to give the guy props for at least trying.

But, like the really rich, stars really are different from you and me; they expect more and get it.

For example, at one point, Baldwin starts groping the cute chef at the rehab center, grabbing her around her waist from behind. Since she wasn't choking to death and in need of a quick Heimlich Maneuver, any regular junkie pulling this stunt would have been reported and probably tossed. But not Daniel.

When discussing his stint in jail, though, the actor gets serious, saying it was terribly humiliating because he had to walk naked in front of the other inmates and had to defecate and urinate while guards watched him. He seems repentant and yet still oddly blustering, remaining so self-absorbed that he also says that he's the most talented of the Baldwin brothers. Talented, definitely, but Alec's the one with all the awards.

So why-in-hell would someone with so much blow it up his nose? He says that he made so much so fast that he simply had too much money at hand and too many weeks between jobs. With time and money he wandered into drugs, and by the time he was 29 he had a $500-a-day cocaine habit.

So why did he choose to expose the dark side of his life this way?

McFadden told me that he told her that he seriously hopes that by exposing his downslide into drugs, the struggle to get clean and the public humiliation that he will help others. Maybe. . . . and maybe not.

You'll be happy to know, however, that unlike other recovering addicts, he was not reported by the cute chef at the posh rehab joint. Instead she moved in with him - and is now pregnant.

"Primetime:
Family Secrets"
Tonight at 10 on ABC

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