:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)/hilaria-baldwin-022025-32ad22f0914147c98d0d780d8c910382.jpg)
Hilaria Baldwin addresses the elefante in the room in the premiere episode of her new reality show, The Baldwins.
The entrepreneur and yoga instructor looks back on the 2020 controversy surrounding her Spanish accent in the premiere episode of her reality show (out Feb. 23 on TLC) with husband Alec Baldwin. The conversation segues into the authenticity of her Spanish origins while husband and wife bicker about a prenuptial agreement.
“Let’s talk slower, let’s talk slower,” Alec tells his impassioned wife. “You’re speaking English in a Spanish cadence which is always perilous for me. Slow down, I can’t understand you.” The screen then cuts to montages of past headlines questioning Hilaria’s accent. In a confessional, Hilaria speaks about how the controversy hurt her and put her in “dark places.”
“I was raised bilingual,” says Hilaria. “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 growing up and speaking two languages is extremely special. 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.”
Rou Shoots/Warner Bros. Discovery
Sign up for Entertainment Weekly’s free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.
She adds of the backlash, “I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me sad and it didn’t make me hurt and it didn’t put me in dark places. But my family, my friends, my community . . . speak multiple languages, have belonging in multiple places. We are a mix of all of these different things and that’s gonna have an impact on how we sound and how we articulate things. That’s normal. That’s called being human.”
Hilaria faced allegations of cultural appropriation in late 2020, with many citing her birth name as Hillary Hayward-Thomas and upbringing in her native Boston. She doubled down on her origins, stating that she was raised in both Boston and Spain. Her accent became less pronounced in the wake of the controversy, though it’s heard here and there in the show. The series follows the life of the husband and wife duo, chronicling the “challenges and humor” of raising seven children (and eight animals) in the public eye and amid the Rust tragedy.
The Baldwins premieres Sunday, Feb. 23 at 10 p.m. EST on TLC.
