"I can't see a world in which I would bring my wife and children back to the U.K.”
Hilaria Baldwin has a few things to say to those who question her Spanish origins.
The 41-year-old wife of actor Alec Baldwin has spent the past five years publicly defending herself against accusations of cultural appropriation due to her inconsistent use of a Spanish accent.
As she explained in the past, Hilaria Baldwin often speaks in Spanish when talking to her family, many of whom live or have lived in Spain, and is known to inadvertently infuse her English with a Spanish tilt.
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In 2020, social media users started questioning her Spanish heritage — even accusing her of pretending to be Spanish for attention.
Hilaria Baldwin, of course, has denounced those claims on numerous occasions.
On May 2, in an excerpt from her upcoming memoir “Manual Not Included,” shared by People, Hilaria Baldwin opens up about the impact this ongoing controversy has had on her life.
“I just existed in a land where sometimes I spoke one language and sometimes I spoke another,” the mother of seven wrote in the memoir, per People. “Sometimes I mixed them and got mixed up.”
Hilaria Baldwin said she “started to really unravel” when people criticized her for forgetting certain words — seemingly referring to a resurfaced video where she forgets the word “cucumber” on the “Today” show.
“I was confused. I felt lost. I missed my family. I couldn’t eat. I got very thin. I started to question my sanity. I started to question if I was a good person,” she wrote.
“I returned to what I used to do as a child, and started to call myself stupid. When I woke up, I wanted to be dead. And I got worse and worse and worse,” she continued.
The excerpt comes several months after Baldwin spoke about her accent controversy in the premiere of her new reality show “The Baldwins,” which aired Feb. 23 on TLC.
“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, per People.
“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,” she continued — adding that her inconsistent accent makes her “human.”
Hilaria Baldwin says the criticism is more than ‘malice and ignorance’
In her memoir, Hilaria Baldwin recalls reading an article in the New York Times about how pro soccer players would see their accents, voices and speech change when playing for teams in other countries.
As she puts it, that article helped her feel like she wasn’t alone — and that awareness was growing.
“Not only did this very insightful article say it’s normal and expected, but it also pointed out that it shows empathy in communication and is a good thing,” she wrote in her memoir, per People.
“I am relieved that now there’s less of a stigma around differences in learning and processing,” she added. “This has given me the freedom to shed some of the shame I felt for so long.”
Hilaria Baldwin also recalled a conversation she had with her brother, who helped comfort her in a time of need.
“You’re speaking to me in Spain, where I’ve lived for most of my life, in Spanish, about the validity of our connection to Spain,” she remembered her brother saying.
“No one is really offended — it’s COVID, and they are home alone and bored, and there is so much misinformation,” her brother added.
She then argues that she teaches her kids Spanish and regularly eats popular Spanish foods — things that she grew up doing decades ago.
“Being this way is not taking anything from anyone. It’s just the way that we were raised,” she wrote.
“I have learned that it isn’t just malice and ignorance that led to the insanity I experienced; it really was about a woman and her voice. Taking her voice,” she continued.
Hilaria Baldwin praises her husband for being ‘so good’ to her
Despite the ongoing criticism, Hilaria Baldwin hasn’t had to go through life alone.
The wellness expert and former yoga teacher met her husband, Alec Baldwin, in 2011. They announced their engagement in April 2012 and tied the knot several months later, per Today.
Now 13 years later, the couple share seven children together — including Carmen, 11, Rafael, 9, Leonardo, 8, Romeo, 6, Eduardo, 4, María Lucía, 4, and Ilaria, 2.
In her new memoir, Hilaria Baldwin describes the constant support she has received from her husband.
“Alec was so good to me throughout this time,” she writes. “He could reach out from a place of real empathy and personal experience.”
Hilaria Baldwin recalled some of the things Alec Baldwin would say to help comfort her late at night.
“You’re not alone. I’m here and I love you. And you can cry, because I know how much it hurts,” she remembered him saying. “It’s so awful, but just know what they’re saying is not true.”
She says Alec Baldwin would often turn to jokes to help her feel better.
“Take it as a compliment: Whatever they are saying you did would make you a genius, and we should use you as a government agent to protect the United States,’” she recalls.
Over the years, Hilaria Baldwin says speech therapy and treatment for ADHD has helped her gain control over her accent.
"I tried to improve myself in all the ways the internet trolls had told me I was broken,” she wrote in her memoir. “And then I got to the point where I realized: This is not helping me.”
“I am mixed-up but I am not bad or broken. And then Hilaria returned,” she concluded.
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“Manual Not Included” by Hilaria Baldwin is expected to be released May 6.
