Alec Baldwin is doing his best to keep his embattled wife Hilaria Baldwin in high spirits despite the onslaught of criticism she’s received over the past week for allegedly “pretending” to be Spanish.
The yoga expert, 36, is at the center of a scandal after it was revealed that she was actually born and raised in Boston, not Spain as she has implied.
The mother of five has been quiet on social media in the last few days. A source tells People magazine that she and Alec rang in the new year in the Hamptons.
As she reportedly remains “upset” about the backlash, the insider claimed the “30 Rock” star “has been around to comfort her.”
“He has been supportive and has tried to cheer her up,” the insider continued.
Meanwhile, one of Hilaria’s “close” friends told the magazine that the scandal has been surprising.
“She loves speaking about her Spanish heritage and seemed to want people to believe that she is Spanish,” the friend said.
Hilaria’s pal added that Hilaria wants her five children — whom she refers to as “Baldwinitos” on social media — to “know that they are half-Spanish.” “It’s been important to her that the kids speak Spanish. And they all have Spanish names.”
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The trouble began for the Baldwin family last month when a Twitter user fired off a since-deleted tweet that read, “You have to admire Hilaria Baldwin’s commitment to her decade long grift where she impersonates a Spanish person.”
The online message sparked sleuths to dig into Hilaria’s background and to discover that despite previous claims, she was not born in Spain, but in Boston. She had previously claimed on a podcast in April 2020, “I moved here [to America] when I was 19 to go to NYU from… my family lives in Spain, they live in Mallorca.”
The bilingual mother of five’s accent has also noticeably fluctuated over the years when she made appearances on TV. In one damning clip from the “Today” show, she appears to forget the English word for “cucumber.”
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Alec had even made similar claims, once stating on David Letterman in 2013 that “my wife is from Spain.”
Hilaria addressed the criticism online in a video. “There have been some questions about where I’m born, I’m born in Boston … I spent some of my childhood in Boston, some of my childhood in Spain, my family, my brother, my parents, my nephew, everybody is over there in Spain now, I’m here,” she explained.
Then, in speaking to the The New York Times, Hilaria called the viral controversy “surreal” and said there are misconceptions about how she’s presented herself.
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“There is not something I’m doing wrong, and I think there is a difference between hiding and creating a boundary,” Hilaria said.
Meanwhile, her CAA speaker page, Wikipedia and IMDB page all previously listed her birth country as Spain. CAA has since removed any mention of her birthplace, while the latter two have made corrections. Speaking in her latest interview, Baldwin blames false reporting and says she has never actively misrepresented her heritage.
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“The things I have shared about myself are very clear,” Baldwin said. “I was born in Boston. I spent time in Boston and in Spain. My family now lives in Spain. I moved to New York when I was 19 years old and I have lived here ever since. For me, I feel like I have spent 10 years sharing that story over and over again. And now it seems like it’s not enough.”