Hilaria Baldwin Addresses Backlash Over Her Accent Controversy

Hilaria Baldwin is speaking out about the backlash she received over her accent.

On the March 16 episode of The Baldwins, Hilaria, 41, reflected on how she learned to change her accent long before it sparked controversy in 2020 when people questioned the authenticity of her Spanish origins.

“Growing up in a way where you have multiple cultural influences on you means that you’re never going to be able to fit in. You can try,” she said. “You can chameleon. You know, people who code-switch we’re very good at chameleoning… and you don’t even think you’re not even thinking about it. It’s just normal. It’s just natural.”

During a conversation with the 15-year-old sister of her daughter Carmen Gabriela’s friend, the television personality liked the experience of “code-switching” — or adopting one’s accent or mannerisms to fit social norms — to speaking with an elderly person.

“They say that it’s like communication, if you ever talk to a really old person who cannot hear, and I’m gonna emphasize, I’m gonna speak slower,” she explained. “And you’re not even really thinking about it. You just start to do it.” 

She continued: “You know what it’s called? Code-switching… I had to learn about it because the whole world was mean to me, and so I had to learn it. It’s code-switching.”

In a confessional, the mother of seven reflected on how she learned to take the controversy in stride.

“Being in, the spotlight, as people like to call it. People say, ‘Oh, don’t you get used to it?’ No, you don’t get used to it,” she said. “You never get used to people being mean. But you take a deep breath, and I think you learn to distance yourself from it, and so, you know, you just try turning down the volume in my head a bit… and I’m not gonna take it personally.”

The conversation about Hilaria’s heritage began in December 2020 when social media users alleged that Hilaria was fabricating her Spanish roots when she was actually born in Boston, Massachusetts and her birth name is Hilary.

“I’ve seen chatter online questioning my identity and culture. This is something I take very seriously, and for those who are asking — I’ll reiterate my story, as I’ve done many times before,” she wrote at the time, along with a since-deleted, seven-minute video. “I was born in Boston and grew up spending time with my family between Massachusetts and Spain. My parents and sibling live in Spain and I chose to live here, in the U.S.A.”

She also addressed the controversy on the season premiere of The Baldwins and shared how she embraced her heritage.

“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 noted in a confessional. “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.”

“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,” she continued.

“That’s normal,” she added. “That’s called being human.”

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The Baldwins airs Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on TLC. Episodes are available to stream on Max.