Hilaria Baldwin may have finally admitted she was born in Boston and identifies as “a white girl,” but her husband, Alec Baldwin, is standing by her and her continued use of what most people are fairly certain is a fake Spanish accent.
On Monday, People magazine published an essay by staff writer Ale Russian criticizing Hilaria from the perspective of an immigrant. Entitled “Why the Hilaria Baldwin Scandal Is Painful for Immigrants — Including Me,” the essay details Russian’s experience, discusses how many immigrants are marginalized, and calls out Hilaria for using an “exaggerated” accent “that she appropriated as an adult,” among other things.
After Russian tweeted a link to the post, Baldwin responded to her directly. “Fake? Exaggerated? Appropriated an accent as an adult? She lived in Spain for many years as a child. She lived both places,” he said on Twitter.
The whole drama really began on Sunday when, in one of the few non-Trump-related scandals of the year, Hilaria posted a video to Instagram in which she wasn’t speaking in a Spanish accent. This led to a considerable number of people digging into her background and concluding that the Spanish accent she’s used for years is fake and further, that her claim to have been born in Mallorca, Spain is false.
Well, later in the day the author, yoga instructor, and podcaster released another video that clarified that she was, in fact, born in Boston, Massachusetts and that she does identify as “a white girl” — with the caveat that “Europe has a lot of white people” and “ethnically I am a mix of many, many, many things.” She has also copped to the fact that she was born Hilary Hayward-Thomas, but says she decided to “consolidate” the two names when she married Alec.
Over the years, Baldwin has also said that she first moved to the U.S. from Spain when she was 19 to study at NYU, and that she has Spanish parents. But others claim to have gone to high school with her in Massachusetts, and her parents appear to have only moved to Spain as recently as 2011.
In any case, Alec Baldwin has been the ever-loyal husband to Hilaria — or at least he has attacked the credibility of her critics and also the social media business — and to be honest, that’s really what you should expect husbands to do. Even if, yeah, uh, that accent is not legit.
See the brief exchange below.
Fake? Exaggerated?
Appropriated an accent as an adult?
She lived in Spain for many years as a child. She lived both places.— AlecBaldwin(HABF) (@AlecBaldwin) December 29, 2020