Hilaria Baldwin has discussed the chances that she might move her family to Spain, five years after the scandal over her shifting accent.
Born Hillary Hayward-Thomas in Boston, she has been a lightning rod for controversy since she was accused in 2020 of having faked Spanish heritage, with particular scrutiny on the way her accent seesawed from Spanish to American.
However she has spoken Spanish since childhood and grew up frequently traveling to Mallorca, where her parents have resided since 2011.
The 41-year-old fitness influencer and her husband Alec Baldwin, 67, have given Spanish names to all seven of their children – Carmen, 12, Rafael, 10, Leonardo, nine, Romeo, seven, Eduardo, five, Lucía, four, and Ilaria, three.
They currently live between New York City and a Hamptons mansion that has spent the past few years on and off the market at fluctuating prices.
Now, she has exclusively told the Daily Mail that she and her family are open to the prospect of moving house because ‘we need a change’ – and she added that ‘my whole family lives in Spain, so I feel like that’s a possibility.’
Hilaria Baldwin has discussed the chances she might move her family to Spain, as she and her husband Alec Baldwin attended a party she gave Friday for her Gurus Magazine cover
In general, she said: ‘I can live in a lot of different places. But I do think that our kids, like, they want to have their own rooms. That’s harder in New York.’
She added: ‘We have so many kids, and so I feel like we need an adventure. I don’t know where we’re gonna go, but we need an adventure.’
Her free-spirited attitude stands in stark contrast to that of her husband, who ‘likes to know all the parts’ of a potential moving destination and focuses on questions like: ‘What are we doing and how is this going to work?’
Hilaria meanwhile said that ‘we’re gonna see where the wind blows us. But no, I just think we’ve been so stuck in a certain way for the past few years and I think it’s going to be really liberating and just go and try something new and different.’
The yoga instructor made the remarks at a launch party she threw for her cover of Gurus Magazine at Zoi Mediterranean restaurant in New York City on Friday.
Her Spanish heritage controversy erupted in December 2020, as fans noticed that although she went by Hilaria and her CAA bio claimed she was born in Mallorca, she was in fact from Boston and had the given name Hillary Hayward-Thomas.
Various interviews resurfaced that showed her slipping into a Spanish accent, and she once forgot the English word ‘cucumber’ during a televised cooking segment.
While appearing on the Cat & Nat podcast in New York in April 2020, she said: ‘I moved here when I was 19 to go to NYU,’ and when she was asked: ‘From?’ she replied: ‘From – my family lives in Spain. They live in Majorca.’
As the scandal erupted that December, she insisted that the ‘cucumber’ moment was a ‘brain fart’ because she was nervous and unused to TV, via the New York Times.
At the New York party, she exclusively told the Daily Mail that she and her family are open to the prospect of moving house because ‘we need a change’
‘We have so many kids, and so I feel like we need an adventure,’ she said; ‘I don’t know where we’re gonna go, but we need an adventure’
She defended herself with a public statement saying: ‘I was born in Boston. I spent time in Boston and in Spain. My family now lives in Spain. I moved to New York when I was 19 years old and I have lived here ever since.’
In early 2021, when the controversy failed to die down, she issued a statement on Instagram saying that she she was ‘sorry’ about the fracas and acknowledging that she ‘should have been more clear.’
However she maintained that she was brought up ‘with two cultures, American and Spanish’ and feels ‘a true sense of belonging to both.’
More recently she has taken a defiant stance on the subject, insisting her changing accent was an example of ‘code-switching,’ on her reality show The Baldwins.
Hilaria’s comments on moving house come after her husband relisted his 10,000-square foot mansion in the Hamptons, now with an asking price of $21 million.
Hilaria is pictured on the latest cover of Gurus Magazine, the achievement she was celebrating at an intimate party at Zoi Mediterranean restaurant in New York City on Friday
Baldwin celebrated with VIP attendees including Dina Lohan, publicist Anna Rothschild, Candace Bushnell, Gurus magazine publisher Derek Warburton and Margaret Josephs
The seven-bedroom, nine-bathroom home includes a pool, covered balconies and a spa, and is situated on a sprawling 10-acre estate in Amagansett, New York.
In the 2000s, when Alec was dating Sex and the City actress Kristin Davis and the relationship was floundering, she confessed to her co-star Sarah Jessica Parker that she was reluctant to leave him because of his ‘incredible house in Amagansett.’
Alec first acquired the property in 1996 for a mere $1.75 million and then put it on the market in 2022 for a whopping $29 million.
By January 2024 he had slashed the price to nearly $19 million and starred in a real estate video plugging the home, saying he was ‘always happiest’ while there.
He took the house off the market that summer after failing to find a buyer amid the ongoing controversy over the Rust shooting, but he has now relisted it for $2 million more than it was selling for last year, via TMZ.
