The internet personality known as Crackhead Barney — who made headlines this week for harassing Alec Baldwin with a pro-Palestinian tirade in an NYC coffee shop — has been up to similar antics across the country for far longer than one news cycle.
Barney, whose age and Christian name unknown, is a New York-based content creator, performance artist, ambush-interviewer, comedian, anarchist, prankster and antagonizer.
But despite her recent foray into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a tendency to target conservatives in her videos, it remains unclear whether Crackhead is one thing — an activist.
“The things that they hate, you want to amp it up, like 1,000 percent,” she told Vice in a rare coherent interview last summer. “I like the confrontation. I want that reaction. The worse the better. Because that’s what makes good TV.”
Crackhead Barney has been doing her chaotic form of performance art across NYC’s streets and subways for about 15 years, but first hit her stride in the pandemic when she went to MAGA rallies and set to work getting under the skin of attendees.
Dressed as a half-naked psychotic cretin, a wraith seemingly scraped from the sidewalks of an NYC nightmare, Crackhead Barney, would accost Trump supporters with a near-incoherent line of questioning about their values.
“At MAGA rallies I would get the best s–t,” she told Vice, “They were so different. Middle American white people, like this loud, black, demonic spirit coming to interview them.”
The pandemonium of her videos caused her social media following to take off, so she leaned into the bit and began visiting gun shows, anti-abortion rallies, stalking conservative politicians, and was even present during the January 6 riot in Washington D.C. where she spent time with QAnon shaman Jacob Chansley before he helped storm the Capitol building.
Barney comes from a conservative Muslim family, and grew up with her Nigerian-immigrant parents dressing her in hijabs. Now she tends to wear little more than a diaper in her videos and has a propensity to smear herself in body paint to poorly masquerade as a white woman.
“The Barney you see in the show and the Barney herself are very similar,” her editor and videographer Jacob Cohen told Vice. “She always says she is herself when she’s in costume. She feels more like herself when she’s performing than she does when she’s not performing.”
Since conflict broke out between Israel and Hamas six months ago, Barney has been pushing the envelope by antagonizing Israeli supporters at rallies — going so far as to taunt Jewish demonstrators that the hostages held by Hamas are as good as dead.
“You know they’re not coming back, don’t you?” she yelled at a group waving the Israeli flag in one video.
On Monday, Crackhead Barney followed actor Alec Baldwin into a downtown coffee shop and demanded he say “Free Palestine,” before asking him “Why’d you kill that lady?” in reference to the cinematographer killed on the set of his movie “Rust” when a prop gun he was using fired off a live round.
After Baldwin refused to interact and Crackhead refused to leave him alone, Baldwin swatted her phone out of her hand and apparently carried it out of the shop to lead her away. He then went back inside and deadbolted the door behind while Barney stalked about outside calling passersby racists and Zionists.
Barney then went on Piers Morgan Uncensored two days later for an interview, where she appeared in a neck brace and crutches, successfully asked Morgan to say “Free Palestine,” lost her wig, and said Baldwin had “maimed” her.
Morgan called the interview the worst he’d ever endured.
It remains unclear what is next for Barney. Since the Baldwin incident, her account has vacillated between being public and private, and is unviewable as of publication.
Representatives for Barney told The Post she has been consulting attorneys against possible legal action Baldwin, though it is unclear on what grounds.
The Post has reached out for further comment.
