“Anybody can say anything they want, if he wants to yell ‘c-sucking f*g’ at people on the street or call people a ‘toxic little queen,’” Cooper told his guests. “But then, don’t lie about it afterward and claim you didn’t know this was an anti-gay slur.”

Baldwin’s new project, the MSNBC talk show Up Late, is currently on a two-week suspension after Baldwin allegedly used the language at a photographer filming his family in New York. But Baldwin denied charges of being homophobic on Twitter, MSNBC’s website and in a Saturday column in the Huffington Post.

“My foundation has donated over $11 million of a projected $15 million from revenue from my recent Capital One ads,” Baldwin — who acknowledged that his show might not return — wrote in the Post. “Many people don’t know that and when informed actually find it hard to believe. But the assertion that I am a bigoted homophobe travels at light speed and, at least in the case of those who like their internet news without fact or reflection, is accepted, even cheered, without a moment of doubt.”

Cooper and Andrew Sullivan, founding editor of The Dish, also criticized Baldwin’s threatening a Daily Mail reporter and calling him a “toxic little queen” for claiming that Baldwin’s wife was on the phone during actor James Gandolfini’s funeral.

“I’m sorry, but that is textbook schoolyard homophobia,” Sullivan told Cooper. “It’s disgusting bullying, and it’s about telling telling that person they’re inferior human beings because they’re gay.”

Baldwin and Cooper also quarrelled on Twitter Monday night, with Baldwin writing, “If I had Anderson’s paycheck and sorry ratings, I might be fast and loose with the truth, as well.”