Who is Crackhead Barney? The half-naked, wig-wearing ambush-interviewer harassing Alec Baldwin and Israel supporters

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 w...