The health and wellness expert took to Instagram on Sunday to respond to critics accusing her of falsifying her ethnic heritage.
Hilaria Baldwin is opening up about her heritage and cultural background. The fitness expert -- who shares five children with husband Alec Baldwin -- took to Instagram on Sunday to share two videos responding to critics who have accused her of lying about having Spanish heritage.
Over the weekend, journalist and podcaster Tracie Egan Morrissey took to her Instagram Story to share a multitude of posts examining Hilaria's alleged claims of her Spanish heritage, and called into question whether or not she has misrepresented her ethnic and cultural background.
The series of posts included clips in which Hilaria appears to speak with a prominent Spanish accent, juxtaposed against clips in which she appears to have no noticeable accent. The posts also delve into both of Hilaria's parents' backgrounds, which seem to indicate that both her parents have American ancestry.
Hilaria addressed these claims -- as well as allegations made by several people on Twitter who claim to have been friends with her in Boston as a child -- and attempted to clear the air with an explanation regarding her childhood and her background.
"I've tried in the past to be clear, but sometimes people don't report and write what you say," Hilaria began in her lengthy post. "I'm born in Boston, I then spent some of my childhood in Boston, some of my childhood in Spain… everybody is over there in Spain now and I'm over here. So there was a lot of back and forth my entire life."
Hilaria explained that she "grew up speaking two languages" and that she and Alec are "trying to raise [our] kids so that they speak two languages too."
Regarding the videos in which she appears to have a thicker accent, Hilaria said she speaks both languages, however, "If I'm speaking a lot of Spanish, I tend to mix them... If I start to get nervous or upset, I start to mix the two. And this is something I've always been a little insecure about."
Another point Hilaria addressed was the claim that she was born with the name Hillary, but has changed it to sound more Spanish -- a claim Hilaria refutes.
"When I was growing up, in this country, I would use the name Hillary, and in Spain I would use the name Hilaria… my whole family called me Hilaria," she shared. "It always bothered me that neither name sounded good in the other language."
"A handful of years before I met Alec, I decided to consolidate the two, because it was so many different documents with so many different things," she added.
She said she was also clear with her husband about where she was born from the very start of their relationship.
"I'm born in Boston. It was literally the first thing I told my husband. And yeah, I'm a different kind of Bostonian, and that's who I am," she said. "You kinda can't change your background, nor would I want to. I'm really, really proud of who I am and all my different experiences... It might not fit into your cookie cutter or fit into your label, but it's my weird mix of who I am."
Addressing those who have claimed she's lied about her ethnicity, and that she is actually white, Hilaria responded, "Yes, I am a white girl. And let's be very clear that Europe has a lot of white people in there, and my family is white. Ethnically, I'm a mix of many, many, many things, and culturally, I grew up with the two cultures. It really is simple as that."
"Ultimately this boils down to this idea where this is a country of a lot of different cultures and I think we can be different parts of ourselves with lots of different people," she stated.
Shortly after posting her first video, Hilaria took to Instagram yet again to reiterate her explanation, and go point-by-point to clarify and refute the multiple allegations and questions regarding her background.
For more on Hilaria and Alec's family, see the video below.
RELATED CONTENT:
