Hilaria Baldwin Addresses Fake Accent Debacle, Impact of Rust Shooting & ‘Gold Digger’ Claims

In a candid moment from the premiere of her family’s new TLC reality show The Baldwins, as shared by PEOPLE, Hilaria, dishes on the 2020 controversy over her accent after people began to question the authenticity of her Spanish origins.

“I love English, I also love Spanish, and when I mix the two it doesn’t make me inauthentic, and when I mix the two, that makes me normal,” she noted in a confessional. “I’d be lying if I said [the controversy] didn’t make me sad and it didn’t hurt and it didn’t put me in dark places.”

The former yoga instructor continued, “But it was my family, my friends, my community who speak multiple languages, who have belonged in multiple places and realize that we are a mix of all these different things and that’s going to have an impact on how we sound and an impact on how we articulate things and the words that we choose and our mannerisms.”

“That’s normal,” she added. “That’s called being human.”

When it comes to the children she shares with husband Alec Baldwin — Ilaria, 2, María, 3, Eduardo, 4, Romeo, 6, Leonardo, 8, Rafael, 9, and Carmen, 11 — Hilaria said despite the public criticism, she will not stop infusing her Spanish culture into their lives.

“I’m raising my kids to be bilingual, I was raised bilingual,” she explained. “My family — all my nuclear family — now lives over in Spain. I want to teach my kids pride in speaking more than one language. I think just growing up and speaking two languages is extremely special.”

The controversy was first sparked in December 2020, after some social media users alleged that Hilaria was faking her Spanish roots when she was actually born in Boston, Massachusetts and her birth name is Hilary.

“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,” she wrote at the time, along with a since-deleted, seven-minute video. “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 U.S.A.”

The confusion surrounding her roots only continued to grow after she forgot the English word “cucumber,” forcing Hilaria to once again address her multilingual upbringing, which at times, still gets questioned in the comments section of her social media posts.

The 41-year-old also addressed claims that she’s a gold digger following her 2012 wedding to Alec, who is 25 years her senior.

“I haven’t googled myself in a very long time, so I don’t know what the word on the street is, but I’ve heard some rumors,” Hilaria tells the cameras. “There’s certain things I can understand. If I looked at a 27-year-old yoga instructor that was dating a 53-year-old rich and famous actor, what would I think?”

As for why she married the It’s Complicated star, Hilaria said that while Alec has made headlines for his short fuse, he’s actually very misunderstood, calling him a “very tender soul.”

His Hollywood good looks didn’t hurt either.

“People think that I married you for money, fame, glamour, all of these things… Why I married you is because you’re a good-looking guy. You were a good-looking guy,” she added.

“Can he be a curmudgeon? Absolutely. Can he be set in his ways? Absolutely,” Hilaria continued. “But he’s really fantastic. He’s funny, he’s kind, he’s handsome, he’s extraordinarily smart and he’s so generous.”

Elsewhere in the show’s inaugural episode, Alec and the mother of seven have a candid conversation about how their lives have changed since he was charged in the October 2021 shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust (the episode was filmed 10 days before the July 2024 trial — during which a judge dismissed the charges against the actor).

“The past three years has been a significant chunk of my children’s lives,” Hilaria said in a confessional. “Our older ones were much younger, but have had the awareness because of their age to be able to understand what’s going on. The youngest three don’t know a life without this.”

After Hilaria opened up about the struggle of parenting their children through these “stressful times,” Alec remarked on how different everything was before the on-set incident.

“Our lives are very, very different,” the 66-year-old actor said. “Our children have been forced to recognize that. They’ve been forced to deal with that, with us in their own way.”

“They’ve had some really unfortunate realizations about things that are going on. Life will forever be different,” Hilaria added. “Halyna lost her life in the most unthinkable tragedy, a son lost his mom. We are going to feel and carry this pain forever. This will be a part of our family story.”

“This has been just surreal,” Alec told Hilaria during the episode. “I mean, I can’t even believe that we’re going through this, and I always feel more in pain about you than me, because I think to myself, ‘Well, I’m going to try do my best to just get through it,’ and I think what it’s done to you and how much it’s hurt you and everything.”

While there were moments Alec admitted he struggled to even get out of bed, Hilaria and their seven children have helped him get through it.

“Honestly, from the bottom of my soul, I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t have you and these kids going through this — I never would have made it with this,” Alec said. “Sometimes I’d say, ‘Why did I have seven kids? Why do we have seven kids?’ And I realize, to help carry me and you through this situation.”

The Baldwins premieres Sunday, Feb. 23 at 10pm E.T. on TLC.