Two weeks after Hilaria Baldwin became the center of social media furor over her apparent efforts to mislead fans about being Spanish, news comes that the influencer and her TV star husband Alec Baldwin have been staying in separate houses.
The separate living arrangements are not because of Hilaria’s Spanish identity scandal, according to Page Six. Alec Baldwin has been staying apart from his Boston-born wife and five children because the couple are abiding by stringent COVID-19 precautions while he goes back and forth to New York City, filming a new project.
Baldwin has been staying and quarantining in a rental house in Amagansett, about a mile away from the family’s Hamptons estate, sources told Page Six. The actor also has been spotted coming and going alone from the rental house and making a solo Starbucks run.
I'm still not bored of this story🧐🧐🧐🧐🧐🧐🧐🧐🧐🧐
Alec Baldwin staying in separate house from Hilaria over COVID concerns https://t.co/ZdwxxC3qBF via @pagesix
— Miz Beaverhausen, duch*ess of Soho (@Reashelby1) January 12, 2021
But the couple have reunited from time to time — for Christmas, for example, when they posted a happy family photo on Instagram. In the wake of the scandal, Baldwin also was photographed walking with Hilaria on the grounds of their estate, with her carrying the four-month old, and with their four other children and nannies in tow.
A representative for Alec Baldwin did not immediately return the outlet’s request for comment, but he opened up about the separate living arrangements in videos he posted to his Instagram account in December — before his wife’s scandal broke.
“I’m here in this guesthouse that’s near our house, that I’m staying in when I’m quarantining,” Baldwin said in one video. “I go into New York and work a little bit and come back and have to quarantine here for a few days. It’s not a lot of fun.”
Baldwin, 62, also talked in December about staying by himself in the family’s New York apartment, explaining that the production he’s working on follows strict COVID-19 safety protocols so it won’t have to shut down.
“I hate this. I hate being away from my family,” Baldwin lamented.
Baldwin otherwise continues to post regularly on social media. But the famously combative star has stopped hitting out at his wife’s critics with f-bombs and other colorful declarations. He has instead focused more on commenting on the nation’s current political crisis and on upcoming projects, although last week he wished Hilaria, “the love of (his) life,” a happy 37th birthday.
Hilaria Baldwin, who has built a lucrative career an influencer, mom podcaster and yogi wellness expert, was called out on Twitter and Instagram for sometimes speaking with an exaggerated Spanish accent in interviews and on her “Mom Brain” podcast, presenting herself as being born in Spain in professional bios, identifying Spanish as her “native language” in a Spanish-language publication and generally cultivating a European-seeming persona as part of her brand.
Amid the furor, it was revealed that Hilaria Baldwin was born Hillary Hayward-Thomas in Boston, and her parents have roots in New England going back generations. Her inconsistencies in how she presented her identity prompted one Twitter sleuth to accuse her of executing “a decade long grift where she impersonates a Spanish person.”
Hilaria Baldwin defended herself in a Dec. 30 interview with the New York Times, but she came across as blaming everyone but herself for the scandal. She explained to the Times that she sees herself as multi-cultural, having grown up traveling to Spain every year because her parents were fond of the country. She declined to offer details about how frequently her family traveled there or how long they stayed.
“There is not something I’m doing wrong, and I think there is a difference between hiding and creating a boundary,” Hilaria Baldwin said elliptically.
Since the interview, Hilaria Baldwin has not posted anything on Instagram, a dramatic withdrawal from a self-described “over-sharer” who regularly posts photos of herself, often just in bra and panties, doing home workouts, or photos of her children using or playing with products for which she had sponsorship deals. Her “Mom Brain” podcast also has not dropped any new episodes.
Alec Baldwin has been questioned on whether he helped push his wife’s Spanish identity narrative after clips emerged of him telling David Letterman in a 2013 interview, “My wife is from Spain.” He also humorously imitated her having a Spanish accent.
From Baldwin’s December videos, the actor sounds devoted to her, as he talks about the agony of living apart from her and their children, ages 7 to four months.
“How do people in the military do this?” Baldwin asked plaintively. “How do people in the military exist away from their families for these protracted periods of time?
“I got married again later in life, and I had kids again later in life,” Baldwin continued, explaining how his 7-year-old daughter, Carmen, was born when he was 55. “We thought, as long as I can afford to keep the lights on, we thought why not? This is the thing we enjoy, having a big family, and we got one.”
About Hilaria Baldwin specifically, Baldwin said he “cherished” her.
“My wife is a very, very special person,” Alec Baldwin said. “If I lived a thousand lifetimes, I would never meet someone as special as Hilaria.”
