Hilaria Baldwin has responded to allegations that she’s pretending to be of Spanish heritage.
The 36-year-old—who’s the wife of Alec Baldwin—posted a video on Instagram on Sunday to discuss the viral claims that she uses a fake Spanish accent among other things. “I’ve seen chatter online questioning my identity and culture. This is something I take very seriously, and for those who are asking—I’ll reiterate my story, as I’ve done many times before,” said Baldwin. “I was born in Boston and grew up spending time with my family between Massachusetts and Spain. My parents and sibling live in Spain and I chose to live here, in the USA.”
She also touched on the reason behind giving her and Baldwin’s five children Spanish names, which she said is meant to “celebrate both cultures in our home.” She added, “Alec and I are raising our children bilingual, just as I was raised. This is very important to me. I understand that my story is a little different, but it is mine, and I’m very proud of it.”
Baldwin's heritage faced scrutiny when last week, Twitter user @lenibriscoe wrote how impressed they were with “Hilaria Baldwin’s commitment to her decade long grift where she impersonates a Spanish person.”
In subsequent tweets, the user shared old videos of Hilaria going in and out of a Spanish accent, and another where accusing her of falsey forgetting how to say the word “cucumber” in English.
It wasn't long before the saga exploded online.
In her IG video, Hilaria also said she’s tried to be transparent about her background before, but it’s been misconstrued.
“I’ve tried in the past to be clear, but people don’t always report and say what you say,” she told her followers. “In this country I would use the name Hillary. In Spain, I would use the name Hilaria. I identify more as Hilaria because that’s what my family calls me.”
She also said she’s grown up between both cultures and speaks both English and Spanish. “Yes, I am a white girl ... Europe has a lot of white people in there. My family is white. Ethnically, I am a mix of many many many things,” she explained. “Culturally, I grew up with two cultures. So it’s really as simple as that.”
Later on Sunday, Hilaria posted some photos of herself growing up and screenshots of text messages with her brother in Spanish. “When I’m sad, I always have my big brother. Te quiero mucho, hermano,” Baldwin wrote in the screenshot.
Baldwin posted his own video, where he didn’t directly mention Hilaria’s situation. “Twitter to me is something where you really gotta dig through the garbage. It’s like a big swap meet,” he said. “It’s just a vast orchard of crap ... I just want to say to people, you’ve got to consider the source. We live in a world now where we’re hidden behind the anonymity of social media. People can say anything. There have been things said about people I love, that I care about deeply, that are ridiculous.”
“Some of it’s so spectacularly false. And they’ve said it about people I love. False things. Untrue things,” Baldwin added. “When you love somebody, you want to defend them.”
