As if we needed yet another scandal to collectively scoff over before the year’s end, half the damn internet is now losing it over the fact Alec Baldwin‘s yoga instructor wife, Hilaria Baldwin, has been caught pretending to be Spanish for much of her adult life.
The “decade-long grift” was first called into question when someone on Twitter brought it to light right before Christmas.
Take this clip of Hilaria on Good Morning America, where she speaks in a Spanish accent and apparently forgets the English word for cucumbers.
Although she spoke with this same, heavy Spanish accent in recent years, in much earlier clips she spoke in a perfectly normal American accent.
People then got sleuthing.
As it turns out, her birth name is actually Hillary Hayword-Thomas. Plenty of articles also mention her mum, an associate physician, spending pretty much her entire career in Massachusetts, while her father’s obituary said he had Yank roots that “pre-dated the American Revolution”.
In other words, she can’t even claim Spanish ancestry from her parents. She’s not Spanish.
Now Hilaria has finally fessed up in a seven-minute-long Instagram video in which she said, in a perfect American accent, that she actually grew up in Boston as opposed to the Spanish island of Mallorca, like she previously claimed numerous times.
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CJTiwHiDX7X/
She explained that growing up, she went by both Hilaria and Hillary because “neither name sounded good in the other language”, before ultimately settling on the Spanish name.
“My parents and sibling [sic] live in Spain and I chose to live here, in the USA,” she added.
“We celebrate both cultures in our home – 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.”
In the comments, not everyone bought her story.
“Gaslighting is your third language,” commented one person.
Here for the woke comments under her joke of a video. Looks like not everyone is falling for her BS! (Usernames blocked out for privacy)
by u/Lc715 in HilariaBaldwin
Credit where credit’s due: in trying to untangle herself from her own ruse, Hilaria/Hillary actually managed to school a few Americans on the difference between being Spanish and being Hispanic.
It appears some Americans conflated Hilaria putting on a Spanish accent and making up a weird backstory with her supposedly pretending to be Mexican or something else that might not be considered white in the US.
“Yes I am a white girl, let’s be very clear that Europe has a lot of white people there,” she said in the Instagram video. Fair point.
Anyway, despite coming clear about her family history, it was still too late. She has already given her five kids Spanish names, appeared on the cover of the Latino magazine Hola! (telling them in an interview she was Spanish), and basically constructed her whole brand and public persona around her being from Spain.
First came the memes:
the group chat educating ourselves about the hilaria baldwin affair pic.twitter.com/8Qhi4H47fv
— jason concepcion (@netw3rk) December 27, 2020
the beauty of the Hilaria Baldwin is we all know a boring American girl who decided she was actually “European”
— Molly Lambert 🦔 (@mollylambert) December 27, 2020
Hilaria Baldwin’s fake accent radicalized me
— Carey O’Donnell (@ecareyo) December 27, 2020
https://twitter.com/LyleLuvsIt/status/1343279910656356354
More Spanish Than #HilariaBaldwin GO pic.twitter.com/PjN1i0Dnc3
— Leslie Nope (@leslieM83225534) December 27, 2020
This Hilaria Baldwin tea has me gagging!!!
It reminds me when Erika confronted Dorit on #rhobh about her faux accent pic.twitter.com/aANDvcPwGc
— Has-been Leprechaun Looking 4 Pot of Gold (@SlutFromDee90s) December 27, 2020
Then came the parodies of Hilaria’s/Hillary’s weird Insta confession video:
what can I say? I too am a different kind of Bostonian so thank you #hilariabaldwin pic.twitter.com/XRtCvbhrRk
— Anna Roisman (@AnnaRoisman) December 27, 2020
My Truth! Please watch! #hilariabaldwin #irishpride pic.twitter.com/NKv2SbbbhP
— HEATHER McDONALD (@HeatherMcDonald) December 27, 2020
This happens to every white girl who studies abroad #hilariabaldwin pic.twitter.com/YTMhLPpvPE
— Hannah Berner (@beingbernz) December 27, 2020
Some questions remain to be answered, such as whether Alec is in on the grift or if he’s stupid enough to have fallen for it for their entire marriage.
“You kind of can’t change your background, nor would I want to,” Hilaria/Hillary said on Insta.
Except she kind of already did. Oops.
