Alec Baldwin's wife, Hilaria Baldwin, is done debating whether or not she is from Spain on social media and ready to sign off from her platforms "for a long time," she said in an Instagram Story post on Sunday, Dec. 27.
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The debate began when Twitter user @lenibriscoe called out Hilaria, 36, for using a Spanish accent sometimes, even though she was born and raised in the Boston area.
"You have to admire Hilaria Baldwin's commitment to her decade long grift where she impersonates a Spanish person," @LeniBriscoe posted Sunday morning.
A long thread of tweets ensued, with @lenibriscoe sharing videos of Hilaria's mom talking about having grown up in New England, as well as videos that show Hilaria sometimes — but not always — speaking with a Spanish accent. One video shows her seeming to forget the English word for cucumber during a TV appearance. Another shows her responding to a jokey post from Amy Schumer in an accent that is very much American.
Hilaria, whose parents went to live on the Spanish island of Mallorca after they retired in 2011, according to Page Six, initially defended herself in a video on Instagram.
But as the scrutiny continued, she finally posted on her Story that she's no longer engaging with critics.
"I've said my piece. I'm so tired," said Hilaria, who shares five children with husband Alec Baldwin.
"I'm going to go back to my family, because I've been not a very good mommy spending a lot of time focusing on this. I just want to be left alone. I love you and I'm going to sign off for a long time," she added (via JustJared).
The Twitter thread, however, continued to grow as new information surfaced.
Having picked up on the former classmates who said they knew Hilaria as Hillary in school in Weston, Massachusetts, for example, Page Six reported Hilaria, "is listed as an alum of the Cambridge School of Weston School in Weston, Massachusetts." Which makes it odd that she told the podcast "Motherhood, Marriage & Miscarriages" in April that she relocated to New York City from Spain at age 19 to attend college.
"I came for school and I never, ever left," she said at the time.
Prior to her indefinite sign-off, the yoga instructor shared a video on Instagram in which she responded to what was being said on Twitter about her authenticity, or lack thereof.
"There's some stuff that needs to be clarified," she said in the post, adding that journalists may have misrepresented her.
"There's 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."
According to Hilaria, she spoke both English and Spanish growing up.
"I am that person. If I've been speaking a lot of Spanish, I tend to mix them, or if I'm speaking a lot of English, I mix that. It's one of those things I've always been a bit insecure about," she said.
As for the tweets focused on confusion about her given name, Hilaria told followers: "When I was growing up, in this country, I would use the name Hillary, and in Spain, I would use Hilaria. And my family, my parents, call me Hilaria."
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She later said the whole issue, "boils down to this idea where this is a country of a lot of different cultures and I think that we can be different parts of ourselves with different people."
"I am somebody who I feel really lucky that I grew up with two cultures. I grew up speaking two languages," she continued.
Finally, she explained that the reason she wanted to chime in on the matter is, "because my thing is about being authentic — and then if people say I'm not being authentic it hurts my feelings. … I'm getting attacked for being who I am… people wanting to label me Spanish or America, can't it be both? It's frustrating that is my story."
Hilaria has said in the past that she and Alec are raising their kids — Leonardo, Carmen, Rafael, Romeo and Eduardo — to be bilingual. She and Alec began dating in 2011 and tied the knot in 2012.
