Alec Baldwin has deactivated his Twitter account following the response he received to a joke about "switching accents".

The quip was made in reference to the controversy his wife Hilaria faced in December, when she was accused of faking a Spanish accent and pretending to have heritage in the Mediterranean country.

Earlier in the week, Baldwin, like many others who watched the Golden Globes on Monday, noticed that Gillian Anderson appeared to have a different accent in real life to the one she portrayed while playing former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Netflix's The Crown.

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When the British-American actress accepted her award for Best Supporting Actress, she had a noticeably more American-sounding accent.

So, taking advantage of an opportunity for irony, Baldwin tweeted in jest: "Switching accents? That sounds... fascinating."

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According to Baldwin, he got a less than favorable reaction to his tweet. After quitting Twitter, he posted a 10-minute Instagram video in which he explained that he was leaving the platform because irony tends to go over people's heads.

"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 Saturday Night Live comic also said he was a "huge fan" of Anderson and his tweet was supposed 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".

Check out what he had to say below:

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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 30 Rock actor went on to say that he plans to "find another news aggregation source" and thanked his followers for their support.

If Baldwin chooses to reactivate his Twitter within 30 days, he will be able to return to the platform as normal.

The 62-year-old is no stranger to deactivating and then reactivating his Twitter account. He had deactivated his account amid the controversy, which centered around his wife and her non-Spanish heritage late last year.

Hilaria Baldwin responds to allegations that she is 'pretending' to be Spanish:

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In the above video, posted to her Instagram, Hilaria herself tried to explain any confusion around her heritage. She said: "A bit about me. I’ve seen chatter online questioning my identity and culture. This is something I take very seriously, and for those who are asking— I’ll reiterate my story, as I’ve done many times before.

"I was born in Boston and grew up spending time with my family between Massachusetts and Spain. My parents and sibling live in Spain and I chose to live here, in the USA.

"We celebrate both cultures in our home — Alec and I are raising our children bilingual, just as I was raised. This is very important to me. I understand that my story is a little different, but it is mine, and I’m very proud of it."

Featured image credit: PictureLux / The Hollywood Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

Alec Baldwin deletes Twitter account after his 'switching accents' joke gets unexpected reaction