I can't see it hurting his career tbh. It's boosted his publicity and the movie's publicity among the less rabid part of the population
Plus it was over care for his craft, there'd be a lot of "god he's a ^^^^" if he was yelling at his assistant for putting one sugar too many in his tea.
Wasn't the studio holding this tape as insurance so that if bale decided he wanted to drop out of the movie he'd think twice before doing so? But it seems they already released it anyway. Great ^^^^ing marketing!