Hilaria Baldwin has been in the spotlight for over a decade, starting as a rising Boston native who rose to fame as a yoga instructor and television personality. Now, Alec Baldwin’s wife has landed her latest gig on “Dancing with the Stars.”
She joins a list of other stars, including Danielle Fishel, Dylan Efron, influencer Alix Earle and “Mormon Wives” stars Whitney Leavitt and Jen Affleck. Hilaria is partnered with Gleb Savchenko for season 34.
Speaking to USA Today ahead of the show’s premiere, Hilaria addressed her critics: “Everybody these days has their critics, whether they’re in the spotlight or not. I’ve learned in my 40s that if you go through life trying to prove things to people, then you’re missing the point and you’re missing being present.”
Over the years, Hilaria has faced controversy, including her Spanish heritage scandal. Her husband, Alec, was charged with involuntary manslaughter – the case was later dismissed – after his involvement in the fatal 2021 shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
“You collect the good and the bad in life along the way,” she told the outlet. “We’re all looking forward.”
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Prior to the announcement, Hilaria shared dancing videos with Alec online, sparking speculation among her fans that she would join the reality competition dancing show.
“I’ve been enjoying all this manifesting. I see in my comments there’s, like, a lot of people manifesting. It’s been a lot of fun manifesting. Let’s continue to manifest,” Hilaria told Extra last month.
Hilaria has been a ballroom dancer since she was a child, per USA Today. “I didn’t know if I belonged in this space,” she told the outlet. “For years I’ve been saying: ‘I’ve got a lot of experience. Is that a problem?’ Apparently it’s not.” According to Hilaria, Alec had urged her to reach out to the show for years.
Hilaria began dating Alec in 2011. In an interview with The New York Times in 2012, she revealed that the actor didn’t ask for her phone number when he saw her at a New York City restaurant. Instead, he gave her his card and told her to call him.
“I was standing near the door with my friends when he walked up and took my hand and said, ‘I must know you,’” she told the outlet. Hilaria called Alec, but got his voicemail. A few days later, the pair went on a date and shortly after, they tied the knot in June 2012.
After the pair married – and following a hip injury from dancing years earlier – Hilaria “closed the door on that part of my life,” she told USA Today. “I started focusing on yoga, met Alec, and we started having kids. My body is different now.”
In 2016, the yoga enthusiast debuted her book “The Living Clearly Method,” which focuses on Hilaria’s “five simple principles” to get through any situation. Hilaria’s background in yoga and wellness led to her appearances on TV shows and more.
However, with the increased spotlight on her, controversy eventually followed.
In 2020, Hilaria was in the middle of a firestorm after a Twitter thread went viral, and she was accused of faking her Spanish heritage once it was revealed that she was a Boston native.
At the time, Hilaria revealed that she and her husband were raising their children with a mix of American and Spanish heritage, and they were raising them to be bilingual. Hilaria was born and raised in Boston, but spent parts of her childhood in Spain. Her parents currently reside in Mallorca.
However, Hilaria has seemingly claimed she was born in Mallorca, Spain, and raised in Boston. She explained on a podcast in April 2020, “I moved here [to America] when I was 19 to go to NYU from… my family lives in Spain, they live in Mallorca.”
Hilaria was also criticized for allegedly faking her Spanish accent, as critics pointed out that it noticeably fluctuated over the years when she made appearances on TV.
In one damning clip from the “Today” show in 2015, Hilaria was a guest on the show for the “People en Espanol festival in New York City,” according to the video’s description. Hilaria, a yoga instructor and fitness expert at the time, was joined by Telemundo host Evi Siskos to cook her “simple gazpacho.”
In the clip, Hilaria appears to confuse her English and Spanish. “We have very few ingredients — we have tomatoes, we have, um, how do you say in English?” she asked Siskis. “Cucumber!”
During her 2020 podcast appearance, Hilaria said she was simply nervous being on live TV and had a “brain fart.”
That same year, she did an interview with The New York Times and clarified information that was floating around online.
“The things I have shared about myself are very clear,” Baldwin 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. 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.”
Although she denied ever lying about being born in the United States, Hilaria issued an apology on Instagram in 2021.
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“I’ve spent the last month listening, reflecting, and asking myself how I can learn and grow.”
“My parents raised my brother and me with two cultures, American and Spanish, and I feel a true sense of belonging to both. The way I’ve spoken about myself and my deep connection to two cultures could have been better explained – I should have been more clear and I’m sorry. I’m proud of the way I was raised, and we’re raising our children to share the same love and respect for both,” she captioned her post.
Shortly following the scandal, Hilaria and Alec teamed up for their podcast, “What’s One More?” which focused on family and philanthropy.
The podcast took a pause after Alec’s involvement in the tragic “Rust” shooting that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. The involuntary manslaughter charges against him were dropped by a judge in July 2024.
This year, the TLC reality show, “The Baldwins” was released on Feb. 23. The eight-episode season highlighted the Baldwins and their seven children. In the first episode, the family relocates to the Hamptons for the summer as Alec prepares for the criminal trial in New Mexico.
Hilaria also brought up her Spanish accent scandal in the premiere episode.
“I love English, I also love Spanish, and when I mix the two it doesn’t make me inauthentic, and when I mix the two, that makes me normal,” she said in a confessional, as quoted by People magazine.
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“I’d be lying if I said [the controversy] didn’t make me sad, and it didn’t hurt, and it didn’t put me in dark places,” Hilaria admitted.
“But it was my family, my friends, my community who speak multiple languages, who have belonged in multiple places and realize that we are a mix of all these different things and that’s going to have an impact on how we sound and an impact on how we articulate things and the words that we choose and our mannerisms.”
“That’s normal,” she added. “That’s called being human.”
