Hilaria Baldwin Says Uproar Has Been 'Surreal'

'Who is to say what you're allowed to absorb and not absorb growing up?'
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 30, 2020 1:04 PM CST
Hilaria Baldwin: My First Words to Alec: 'I'm From Boston'
Hilaria Baldwin attends a news conference at United Nations headquarters, Monday, Sept. 21, 2015.   (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Hilaria Baldwin is not as Spanish as people believed she was—and she's not sure why people are making such a big deal out of it. Baldwin, who grew up in Boston with American parents but speaks with a Spanish accent, tells the New York Times that she never deceived husband Alec Baldwin. She says she told the actor she was from Boston when they first met at a restaurant in 2011. She says Baldwin, who was at the next table, said, "Who are you, I must know you, I must know you," and asked, "Where are you from?" "And I said, 'I'm from Boston.' That was the first thing I said, that has always been my narrative." She says her father has "deep, deep bonds" with Spain and they visited the country at least once a year throughout her childhood. While she used the name Hillary until at least 2009, she says she was often called Hilaria at home.

Baldwin, whose five children with the actor have Spanish names, tells the Times that Spanish culture shaped her as much as American culture did. "Who is to say what you’re allowed to absorb and not absorb growing up?" As for a Today show clip in which she asks Telemundo's Evi Sisko what the English word for cucumbers is while making gazpacho soup, Baldwin says she had a "brain fart" because she was nervous about being on TV. She says the attention she has received since a Twitter user drew attention to her upbringing last week has been "surreal." "I am entitled to my privacy," she says. "People say, ‘No, you’re not entitled to your privacy because you married a famous person and you have Instagram.’ Well, that’s not really true." Read the full interview here. (Alec Baldwin had strong words for his wife's critics.)

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