Three-time Emmy winner Alec Baldwin and his wife Hilaria have joined the esteemed ranks of the Duggars, the Gosselins and Honey Boo Boo with a TLC reality show documenting their domestic routine.
“The Baldwins,” arriving Sunday on TLC, follows 66-year-old Alec, 41-year-old Hilaria, their seven children and a menagerie of pets in the weeks leading up to his trial for involuntary manslaughter. The premiere episode, “Along Came Hilaria,” provides a glimpse into the privileged yet chaotic life of a family that was already a tabloid fixation well before Baldwin accidentallyshot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of “Rust.”
Despite this tragic context, “The Baldwins” mostly plays like a high-end version of “19 Kids and Counting,” focusing on mundane parenting duties and the logistical feats required to transport their brood from a cramped, toy-strewn five-bedroom apartment in downtown Manhattan to their palatial home in the Hamptons. The series showcases all seven children, including the youngest, Ilaria (referred to as “Baby”), who at one point teeters perilously on the edge of a kitchen bar stool. (There’s also a fleeting mention of the family’s two nannies.)
Back in 2008, in the middle of a career resurgence driven by his celebrated role on “30 Rock,” Alec told the New Yorker he was tired of acting (“I want to be me! I want to be myself.”). Now, he’s gotten what he may have been subconsciously wishing for: being a reality TV star.
The premiere episode addresses the “Rust” shooting as well as other scandals that have dogged the family, including Hilaria’s penchant for speaking with a Spanish accent (even claiming to be from Spain, though she grew up in Massachusetts) and the view, held by many detractors on social media, that she is a fame-thirsty gold digger. The overall vibe is reminiscent of a CBS sitcom featuring an older, curmudgeonly husband who has no choice but to indulge his younger wife.
The series is not exactly chock full of revelations, unless you consider it newsworthy that Carmen, the eldest of their children, refers to her messy updo as a “butt cheek bun,” or that Alec has a severe allergy to cats, despite owning four of them. It is also very sympathetic to the Baldwins, who are executive producers. Still, there are a few eye-opening moments.
Here’s a look at the biggest takeaways.
Hilaria claims that Alec has PTSD from the ’Rust’ shooting
The episode is set last summer, as Alec prepares to stand trial in New Mexico on a charge of involuntary manslaughter, which could have sent him to prison for 18 months. (The case was ultimately dismissed by a judge.) The looming trial weighs heavily on the family, especially Alec.
“Everyone who is close to Alec has seen his mental health decline. He was diagnosed with PTSD, and he says, in his darkest moments, if an accident had to have happened this day, why am I still here?” Hilaria says.
“Everything was so different before this happened, and our lives are very, very different. Our children have been forced to recognize that. They’ve been forced to deal with that, with us, in their own way,” Alec says.
“They’ve had some really unfortunate realizations about things that are going on,” Hilaria adds. “Life will forever be different. 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.”
Alec and Hilaria Baldwin with their seven children.
(TLC)
Hilaria thinks her Spanish accent makes her ’normal,’ not inauthentic
In 2020, after a social media uproar questioning how she’d represented herself publicly for years, Hilaria was forced to clarify that she is from Massachusetts, that her given name is Hillary, and that she is neither Latina nor Hispanic.
The controversy over Hilaria’s heritage comes up about halfway through the premiere episode, as she and Alec discuss her prenuptial agreement during a confessional interview. Hilaria starts to accelerate her speech, and the inflection in her voice grows more noticeable. Alec interrupts her: “Let’s talk slower. You’re speaking English in a Spanish cadence, which is always perilous for me. Slow down.”
Hilaria rejects the idea that her accent is an act of cultural appropriation, reframing it as a positive reflection of her multicultural upbringing, saying she’s spent time in Spain and has family members who live there now. “I think growing up and speaking two languages is extremely special. I love English. I also love Spanish, and when I mix the two, it doesn’t make me inauthentic. When I mix the two, that makes me normal,” she says. Speaking another language and spending time in another country is “going to have an impact on how we sound and impact on how we articulate things, and the words that we choose and our mannerisms,” she says. “That’s normal. That’s called being human.”
Alec doesn’t weigh in on his wife’s accent, and the episode leaves out more damning moments, like the notorious “Today” show clip in which Hilaria struggles to remember the English word for cucumber while making gazpacho.
Alec has OCD, which makes having seven children and eight pets extra challenging
Alec has spoken publicly in the past about his struggles with obsessive compulsive disorder. But in “The Baldwins,” we witness the behavior firsthand as Alec arranges bottles of water in a perfect line, sorts a tangle of swimming goggles and fusses with the food in the freezer, in a futile attempt to stem the chaos of his home life.
“People throw the term OCD around very casually,” Hilaria says. “‘Oh, my God, I love to have my closets organized. I’m so OCD.’ OCD is a real thing that’s really hard.”
When a producer notes that having seven kids and eight pets is an “interesting combination” for someone with OCD, Hilaria replies, “It was a curious choice that he made.”