The father of former CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin has responded publicly to her account alleging that he physically punished her during childhood.
Baldwin, 47, who previously hosted CNN Newsroom, said in a Sunday Substack post that her father, Steve Baldwin, struck her with a belt when she was young.
She described the alleged episode, which she said happened more than three decades ago, in an essay headlined, ‘Sh*t That Stays With Us. My Father. The Belt.’
Baldwin said the memory resurfaced after she interviewed a woman from the South who spoke about being ‘spanked as a little girl.’
‘Elementary school. My father… The belt. I’ve never shared this story before,’ Baldwin wrote. She said she does not remember what led to the punishment, though she believes it may have followed a disagreement with her younger brother.
Because she was older and bigger and was expected to ‘know better,’ Baldwin said she was held responsible and received the punishment. Her account appeared as part of a wider blog entry titled ‘America, Tell Me Everything.’
The former CNN host, who said she is now estranged from her father, recalled waking the following morning with bruising ‘on [her] backside’ after being struck repeatedly with the belt.
‘Let the record reflect… this ended up being my last spanking,’ she wrote.
Former CNN Newsroom anchor Brooke Baldwin, 47, alleged that her father struck her with a belt during her childhood. Steve Baldwin, pictured with his daughter in 2021, said he has ‘no recollection’ of the incident. Baldwin says the pair are now estranged
Baldwin spent more than 11 years hosting CNN Newsroom. In her Substack essay, she also reflected on leaving CNN in 2021 and shared a link to a 2024 opinion article in which she accused the network of ‘muzzling’ her
Baldwin told readers that the experience has remained with her over the years, including recurring flashbacks accompanied by what she described as ‘full-body panic.’
Steve Baldwin rejected the allegation when he was contacted by phone by Our News Outlet on Monday.
‘For 40 years, no member of my family has mentioned this alleged incident to me. I have no recollection of it ever having taken place.’
‘All I can say is that I love my daughter unconditionally, and I always will,’ he said in a statement.
Baldwin responded in a statement of her own to Our News Outlet: ‘I remember it like it was yesterday. I know what happened to me, and I stand by every word I wrote.’
Baldwin wrote that, as a child, she felt ‘the anxiety of knowing the pain was coming.’
She also wrote about having to head to sleepaway camp that week, and being ‘mortified’ at the prospect of other kids seeing her bruises when changing.
In her Substack post, Baldwin also addressed her exit from CNN in 2021 and linked to an opinion piece she wrote in 2024 where she accused the network of ‘muzzling’ her.
Baldwin was fired from CNN after working for the company for more than a decade.
Baldwin’s headline for the piece read: ‘Sh*t That Stays With Us. My Father. The Belt’
The anchor was fired from CNN in early 2021, though at the time did not speak about the circumstances surrounding her exit
She maintained she was sidelined and later cut by then-network chief Jeff Zucker after developing a contentious relationship with an unnamed executive producer.
She told readers she ‘couldn’t tell the whole truth’ about what happened, at the time.
‘Jeff wanted me out. No explanation. Just out,’ she wrote. ‘And the worst part? I had to lie to my team, my friends and family, and my viewers.’
Prior to that, Baldwin had suggested the decision was her own.
Baldwin accused CNN of firing her again during an August 2025 TedTalk, claiming she was cut without a clear explanation and even had the documentation for proof. The lecture was titled, ‘Getting Fired From My Dream Job Taught Me About Truth.’
Most recently, Baldwin appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s podcast in October to discuss her CNN exit, framing it as ‘an unraveling, but in a good way.’ The episode was titled ‘How to Let Go after Being Let Go.’
‘You know, ultimately, I realized this was the beginning of my unraveling. Like – Oprah, you say this and it’s so right on – it’s like the universe comes, and first it’s the whisper, and we don’t really always want to hear,’ she told Winfrey.
‘And then comes the knock, and we’re like I don’t want to know who’s on the other side of the door. And then, as I put it, like the frying pan to the forehead.
She later said she was let go by then-CEO Jeff Zucker, due to an alleged dispute with her male executive producer
‘And I only now know that I needed it – that I had veered so totally off my path and I needed to come home to myself.’
Baldwin launched her Substack, ‘Unraveling,’ the year before, joining fellow former CNN stars like Jim Acosta, Don Lemon and Alisyn Camerota in doing so. She now has nearly 20,000 subscribers.
Our News Outlet approached CNN for comment.
