Hilaria Baldwin insists she ‘forgot’ the English word for cucumber after a ‘brain fart’ and NEVER faked Spanish heritage
HILARIA Baldwin has insisted she “forgot” the English word for cucumber in the resurfaced clip of her during a cooking segment. Alec Baldwin’s wife addressed the now-viral moment amid accusations that she “faked” her Spanish heritage. Hilaria, 36, was filmed on The Today Show saying: “We have very few ingredients. We have tomatoes, we have, […]
HILARIA Baldwin has insisted she “forgot” the English word for cucumber in the resurfaced clip of her during a cooking segment.
Alec Baldwin’s wife addressed the now-viral moment amid accusations that she “faked” her Spanish heritage.
Hilaria, 36, was filmed on The Today Show saying: “We have very few ingredients. We have tomatoes, we have, um, how do you say in English, cucumbers.”
The user who uncovered the clip wrote alongside it: “Here she is pretending not to know how to say cucumber in English.”
The footage was unearthed amid several others that appeared to show Hilaria speaking in a “fake” Spanish accent – despite being born in Boston.
Hilaria told The New York Times she got confused about the word for cucumber because she was nervous about being on live television.
The yoga instructor – who has five children with actor Alec – attributed the moment to a “brain fart”.
She also vehemently denied claims she has exaggerated her Spanish roots.
“The things I have shared about myself are very clear,” she said.
“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.”
Hilaria added: “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.
“My intention is not to be an American TV personality. My intention is not to be a Spanish TV personality.”
She said she first visited Spain with her parents when she was a baby and went at least every year from then on.
While the family were home in Boston, she said they spoke Spanish and cooked Spanish food and that family friends from Spain would often stay with them for long periods of time.
Amid the social media uproar, Hilaria clarified on Instagram that she is “white” and that her birth name is “Hillary”.
“When I was growing up in this country I would use the name Hilary and in Spain I use Hilaria. It always bothered me that neither name sounded good in the other language. I would use one or the other one,” she said.
“A handful of years before I met Alec, I decided to consolidate the two. So many documents had so many different things.”
“I identified more with Hilaria because that’s what my family calls me. It means happy in all languages. We can all be clear, it’s the same just a few letters different so we shouldn’t be upset about it.”
She added: “Yes I am a white girl. Let’s be very clear Europe has a lot of white people in there. My family is white. Ethnically I’m a mix of many things.
“It’s really as simple as that. That’s who I am. You can’t change your background. Not that I would want to. I’m really, really proud of who I am.”
Alec has defended his wife several times since the controversy broke, calling the backlash “just a lot of s**t” in a furious video on Instagram.
“You have to kind of hack your way through the debris of Twitter. Twitter is just a vast orchard of crap,” the 30 Rock actor raged.
“And I have certainly slung some crap in that orchard myself every now and then with things I’ve said. So, that’s not lost on me that I’m guilty of that as well.”
He then snapped and told a follower to “go f**k yourself” after they accused Hilaria of being a “fraud”.
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While social media users everywhere have been ripping and roasting Hilaria through it all, celebrities have also joined in as standup comic Amy Schumer posed in an over-sized hat and sunglasses.
Amy captioned the now-deleted snap: “I get it. I went to Spain a couple times and love it too.”
MTV’s Nev Schulman also offered to provide his services to Alec by tweeting: “On this weeks episode of #catfish, we help @AlecBaldwin find out if @hilariabaldwin really is who she says she is…”
Hilaria and Alec share children Carmen Gabriela, seven, Rafael Thomas, five, Leonardo Ángel Charles, four, Romeo Alejandro David, two, and Eduardo, who was born in September.