Hilaria Baldwin—the wife of actor Alec Baldwin—has skeptics raising an eyebrow after claiming in a viral video that she couldn't remember the word "onions" while speaking in a heavy Spanish accent—despite having been raised in Boston.
The exact timing of the video is unclear. It was “obtained exclusively” by the Daily Mail, which claims Baldwin is cooking for “her holiday guests,” suggesting it was filmed recently. However, no additional context was provided. The video on the Daily Mail’s website includes an Instagram handle linked to a private account.
In the footage, Baldwin speaks in a pronounced Spanish accent while preparing a dish with tortillas.
Speaking to a male friend cooking alongside her, she says:
“I learned this from when I was a kid. Don’t look it up online because you’ll learn something different."
As she discusses the recipe, she mentions having to modify it slightly to suit her spouse’s preferences:
“My husband hates … cebollas."
For those who don't know, "cebolla" is the Spanish word for "onion"—and when her friend "helps" her translate the word into English, she replies, still committed to her bit:
"Thanks... cebolla."
You can see the video below.
If you think this is weird as hell, you have to keep in mind that this isn't the first time Baldwin has courted controversy for pretending to be Spanish.
A few years ago, a Twitter user accused her of "impersonating" a Spanish person and posted a number of video clips of Baldwin speaking with a contrived Spanish accent, including one where she appeared to forget the English word for "cucumber."
The tweets prompted a number of news articles and accusations of cultural appropriation, since at other times Baldwin—whose birth name is Hillary Lynn Hayward-Thomas—was heard speaking American accented English.
Additionally, her agency's website listed her birthplace as Mallorca rather than Boston and commentators noted Baldwin is often misidentified as either Mallorcan, Spanish, or Latina, encouraging positive press by Hispanic media such as the Spanish-language celebrity gossip magazine ¡Hola!
She was swiftly called out for her "onions" weirdness.
The backlash against Baldwin has prompted her critics to compare her to Rachel Dolezal, the former college instructor and activist known for presenting herself as a Black woman despite having been born to white parents.
In response to negative press—including a piece in The Atlantic that referred to her as an "identity hoaxer"—Hilaria Baldwin has said that she identifies as white, and her ethnic background includes "many, many, many things." She said she spent "some" of her childhood in Spain and "some" in Massachusetts, but had never been enrolled in school in Spain, only spending time there during family holidays.
