Alec Baldwin was interviewed just hours after his explosive telephone outburst to his 11-year-old daughter Ireland was heard from coast to coast.

“I am going to get on a plane, and I’m going to come out there for the day, and I am going to straighten you’re a** out,” he threatened his only daughter with ex-wife Kim Basinger.

However, when Alec emerged on Letterman the same day he left the voicemail, he gushed about Ireland.

When Letterman asked how she was doing, he replied, “She’s great.”

On Friday, Harvey Levin, managing editor of TMZ.com, which broke the story, told “Extra” what may have led to this father’s fury.

“He called, she didn’t answer. He called again the next day, she didn’t answer. The third day, the tape that we have, is the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Levin dished.

On his website late Friday, he told his fans, “I am most saddened that this was released to the media because of what it does to a child.”

Baldwin’s spokesman tells us, “He apologized to Ireland a week ago; he knows he was wrong.”

Alec was supposed to visit Ireland in Los Angeles Friday, but because of the voicemail leaked to the press, an L.A. judge has provisionally balanced Alec’s visitation rights.

What’s more, Alec has spent a cool $1.25 million in legal fees over the past six years and is currently writing a book about divorce.

“This is the nastiest divorce I’ve ever seen,” Levin told. “This is the war of the roses on steroids.”