“I’m born [sic] in Boston. It was literally the first thing that I told my husband.” Those exact words came out of Hilaria Baldwin’s mouth in response to people accusing her of pretending to be Spanish. She made the statement in this Instagram video (shortly after the 5:00 min mark). In that video, Mrs. Baldwin also stated, “Yes, I am a white girl” and clarified that her actual name is Hillary. This strange mess is precisely the reason why people are revisiting an interview that her husband, Alec Baldwin, gave to David Letterman in 2013.
In the below video, Alec related a story about her wife being on the phone with her hairdresser. During the anecdote, he mimicked an accent and then declared, “My wife is from Spain.” He added, “I don’t mean to be racist when I put that accent on, by the way.”
If “the first thing” Hilaria Baldwin told Alec Baldwin is that she’s from Boston, then this is really too cringe pic.twitter.com/U21rJCsMxY
— potato gay (@brennylen) December 28, 2020
It’s another bizarre turn in what might be an intricate long game for the social media influencer, or as a Twitter user judged it, a “decade long grift where she impersonates a Spanish person.” Many people have noted that Hilaria slips in and out between using Spanish and American accents, although she usually sticks with the former while in public view. One of the weirdest details, though, involves Hilaria “forgetting” the English word for “cucumber” in the midst of an interview.
Well, the issue clearly isn’t over on either side of this discussion. Hilaria has gone on the defense in a fresh New York Times interview, pointing blame at the press for her current situation and claiming that she was never misled anyone regarding her heritage. She rationalized how she previously told followers that she was “going home” to Spain and didn’t feel that this was a lie because that’s where her parents lived. The NYT points out that Hilaria never mentioned her family in her wedding announcement, but Hilaria made a pretty big deal in her Instagram video about how 40 or so family members flew over from Spain to attend the NYC wedding. And the Daily Mail has published details about the ceremony, including how Alec and Hilaria said “Sí” as part of their vows, which were read in both Spanish and English.
Then there’s this excerpt from the New York Times, which referred to a Twitter user who agreed to an interview on the condition of anonymity:
She said that Ms. Baldwin’s American upbringing was an open secret among many people in New York and she just decided to make it less secret. “We’re all bored and it’s just seemed so strange to me that no one had ever come out and said it, especially for someone who gets so much media attention,” said the woman, who was granted anonymity by The New York Times because she said she was scared that Mr. Baldwin, who agreed to take an anger management course in 2019 in order to dispose of charges after a fight with a man over a parking spot and has been arrested, escorted from a plane and suspended from a job as an MSNBC host, all in the last decade, would punch her. (A spokeswoman for Mr. Baldwin declined to comment.)
In the aforementioned Instagram video, Hilaria explained that she’s raising her children as bilingual, and “I identify more as Hilaria because that’s what my family calls me.” She added, “Yes, I am a white girl, let’s be very clear that Europe has a lot of white people in there. My family is white. Ethnically, I am a mix of many many many things.”
What a strange story, all of it. As of now, Alec Baldwin has also not commented upon his resurfaced Letterman appearance, though that might be coming.
(Via New York Times & Daily Mail)