The internet personality known as Crackhead Bernie made headlines this week for harassing Alec Baldwin with pro-Palestinian rants in a New York coffee shop, but he’s been around the country for far longer than one news cycle. He continues to engage in similar antics.
Bernie, whose age and Christian name are unknown, is a New York-based content creator, performance artist, ambush interviewer, comedian, anarchist, prankster, and antagonist.
But despite her recent foray into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and penchant for targeting conservatives in her videos, it remains unclear whether crackheads are activists.
“We want to amplify what they don’t like by like 1,000 percent.” she told Vice Last summer, he gave a rare and consistent interview. “I like confrontation. I want that reaction. The worse, the better. Because that’s what makes good television.”
Crackhead Bernie has been performing chaotic performance art on the streets and subways of New York City for about 15 years, but he first came into his own during the pandemic when he attended MAGA rallies and exposed attendees’ skin. That’s when I crawled downstairs and started working.
Crackhead Bernie, a half-naked psychotic cretin, a specter scraped from the sidewalks of a New York City nightmare, taunted Trump supporters with almost incoherent questions about their values.
“I think I’ll be at my best at a MAGA rally,” she told Vice. White people in middle America like this loud black devilish soul who comes to interviews. ”
As her social media following skyrocketed in the wake of her video uproar, she leaned into it, going to gun shows and anti-abortion rallies, stalking conservative politicians, and visiting Washington, D.C., where she was staying. He was also present at the January 6th riot in DC. She spent time with QAnon shaman Jacob Chansley before she helped storm the Capitol.
Bernie was born into a conservative Muslim family and grew up wearing a hijab by her Nigerian immigrant parents. Nowadays, she tends to wear more than just diapers in her videos, and she tends to apply body paint to her body to disguise herself as a white woman.
“The Barney you see on the show and Barney herself are very similar,” her editor and videographer Jacob Cohen told Vice. She says, “She says she’s always herself when she’s in her costume. She feels more herself when she’s performing than when she’s not performing.”
Since the conflict erupted between Israel and Hamas six months ago, Mr. Bernie has pushed the envelope by antagonizing Israeli supporters at his rallies, making hostages held by Hamas as good as dead. He even went so far as to ridicule Jewish demonstrators.
“You know they’re not coming back, right?” she yells at a group waving Israeli flags in one video.
On Monday, Crackhead Bernie followed actor Alec Baldwin into a downtown coffee shop, demanding he say “Liberate Palestine,” and then asking him, “Why did you kill that woman?” It was named after a cinematographer who was killed when a prop gun he was using on the set of the movie “The Last” fired live ammunition.
When Baldwin refused to interact and the crackhead refused to leave him alone, Baldwin knocked the cell phone out of her hand and took it out of the store, apparently to take her away. Then he went back inside and bolted the door behind him while Bernie walked around outside, calling his passersby racists and Zionists.
Bernie was interviewed two days later on Piers Morgan’s Uncensored show, where he appeared with a neck brace and crutches, successfully asked Morgan to say “Liberate Palestine”, lost his wig, and She said Baldwin “crippled” her.
Morgan called the interview the worst he had ever endured.
What Mr. Bernie will do next remains unclear. Since the Baldwin incident, her account has oscillated between public and private and cannot be viewed at the time of publication.
A representative for Ms. Barney told the Post that she is consulting with a lawyer about possible legal action against Mr. Baldwin, but the basis for that action is unclear.
The Post is seeking further comment.
