Hilaria Baldwin’s ex-dance partner slams ‘hilarious’ name change from Hillary and admits she ‘desired’ to appear Spanish
HILARIA Baldwin’s ex-dance partner Alexander Rechits, who danced with her for years while she still went by the name Hillary, slammed her name change as “hilarious.”
Alec Baldwin’s wife has recently come under fire as fans have been claiming she’s been faking having a Spanish accent and lied about being born in Spain.
In a new interview with The New York Times, Hilaria clarified that she was born in Boston but spent a lot of time in her childhood traveling to Spain and had roots there.
The 36-year-old said she was known as Hillary to many but Hilaria to her family and explained that she eventually thought it was best to choose just one form of her name.
She decided to go with Hilaria, as that’s what she said her family members – who all now live in Mallorca, a Spanish island in the Mediterranean – call her.
She made the name change shortly before she started dating her actor husband, Alec, with whom she shares five kids.
The author claimed it made sense to do so because it was getting complicated for her to go by different names on documents, according to an Instagram she posted.
Alexander was Hilaria’s competitive dance partner from 2006 until 2009 and always knew her as Hillary Hayward-Thomas.
He told the NYT that her “whole ‘Hilaria’ thing is hilarious” to him.
The business and marketing consultant said he “understands why she did it,” though.
“It was always her desire to be considered Spanish,” Alexander explained. “She had roots in Spain, her brother lived there, she visited there a lot.”
He continued: “But Hillary is a very good strong name, so why would you change that when you were born here and you weren’t born in Spain?”
The former dancer, who immigrated to New York from Belarus, added: “I have a lot of nicknames in Russian, but I’m still Alexander everywhere I go.”
Aside from the public’s confusion over Hillary switching to Hilaria and where she was in fact born, fans have also been wondering about videos showing her switching in and out of an accent, as well as her seemingly not knowing the word “cucumber.”
One online user captioned a video of Hilaria speaking in a Spanish accent on GMA after she married Alec, 62, in 2012: “Fake Spanish accent debut – this woman grew up in Massachusetts.”
In another video from the TODAY show, Hilaria said during a cooking segment: “We have very few ingredients. We have tomatoes, we have, um, how do you say in English, cucumbers.”
The user captioned the video: “Here she is pretending not to know how to say cucumber in English.”
In a recent Instagram video, Hilaria did not have a Spanish accent, as a follower asked: “Where did your accent go? Hmm.”
Hilaria explained to the outlet that she’s bilingual and a Spanish accent can sometimes be heard while she’s speaking English depending on how she’s feeling, with a thicker accent coming out when she’s happy or upset.
As for the cucumber incident, she called it a “brain fart,” citing her nerves over being on live TV for one of her first times.
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Jumping in to his wife’s defense, Alec branded the claims about Hilaria’s heritage “just a load of s**t” in a furious rant on Sunday.
The 30 Rock star later snapped and said “go f**k yourself” after a fan called his wife a “fraud” for “faking” Spanish heritage for years.