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Alec Baldwin

Hilaria Baldwin weighs in after questions swirl about her accent, culture: 'I'm living my life'

David Oliver
USA TODAY

Hilaria Baldwin and her husband Alec Baldwin are speaking out after questions emerged about the yoga instructor's upbringing.

"Today we have an opportunity to clarify for people who have been confused – and have been confused in some ways by people misrepresenting me," Hilaria Baldwin told The New York Times in an interview published Wednesday.

Baldwin addressed the criticism after videos emerged showing her speaking with different accents and tweets claimed she used to go by the name Hilary. She told the Times she didn't know ¡Hola! magazine reported inaccurately that she was a Spaniard and expressed disappointment over a C.A.A. bio that used inaccurate information.

She told the outlet she hasn't previously spoken about her upbringing in order to create boundaries and protect her parents, David Thomas Jr. and Dr. Kathryn Hayward.

"Where is the smoking gun? My intentions are I’m living my life and my life is created by my parents, my different experiences, my languages, my culture and, yeah, my kids do have very Spanish-influenced names," she said.

Baldwin told the Times that her family spent much of their time in Madrid, Seville and Valencia when they visited Spain. “The things I have shared about myself are very clear,” she said, reiterating she was born in Boston and grew up spending time in both Massachusetts and Spain. Her parents and brother live in Spain and she decided to live in the U.S. 

“For me, I feel like I have spent 10 years sharing that story over and over again. And now it seems like it’s not enough,” she said.

"This has been a part of my whole life, and I can’t make it go away just because some people don’t understand it," she said.

Baldwin also took to social media to address questions. "I’ve seen chatter online questioning my identity and culture," she wrote in an Instagram post earlier this week. "This is something I take very seriously, and for those who are asking— I’ll reiterate my story."

"We celebrate both cultures in our home – Alec and I are raising our children bilingual, just as I was raised. This is very important to me. I understand that my story is a little different, but it is mine, and I’m very proud of it," she concluded.

She elaborated with an accompanying video.

"I am that person that if I've been speaking a lot of Spanish, I tend to mix them, and if I'm speaking a lot of English then I mix that."

She said when she gets nervous or upset, she starts to mix the languages as well.

As for her name: When she was growing up in the U.S. she would use the name Hilary and in Spain she would use Hilaria. She ultimately decided to go by Hilaria.

The Cut broke down mixed messaging about Hilaria Baldwin's birthplace and upbringing over the years, as well as highlighted a tweet that inspired much of the online conversation: "You have to admire Hilaria Baldwin’s commitment to her decade long grift where she impersonates a Spanish person." 

Alec Baldwin, meanwhile, spoke in vague terms about social media and how false things have been said about people he loves. 

"You have to hack your way through the debris on Twitter," he said in a video posted to Instagram. "Twitter is just a vast orchard of crap. And I have certainly flung some crap in that orchard myself every now and then."

He asked that people "consider the source." "We live in a world now where we're hidden behind the anonymity of social media," he said, noting that people feel they can say anything.

The "Glengarry Glen Ross" star's daughter with actress Kim Basinger, Ireland Baldwin, also defended her stepmother on social media. "It's so pathetic that anyone would want to play detective and dig that deep into someone's life that they don't know – don't know anything about, don't know how they were raised, who they were actually raised by," the 25-year-old shared to her Instagram Stories Sunday.

The model also described Hilaria as "very kind."

"She’s a caring person, who has always respected my relationship with my dad, and I have a great relationship with her," said Ireland. "She could be a really malicious, terrible, horrible human who tears people down, but she isn't. Hilaria is a wonderful mother, who takes great care of her kids, and she takes great care of my dad, and that’s really all that matters to me.”

Contributing: Erin Jensen

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