Alec Baldwin's Bostonian Wife Hilaria's Fake Spanish Accent Came Back as She Defended Her Husband
Even if you're one of the most gifted, versatile, handsome, and downright successful actors of your generation, the way Alec Baldwin, it's obviously not been the easiest year and a half:
And by extension, it's not been the easiest time to be his wife Hilaria, who has been involved in controversies of her own. Not the kind where anyone gets shot and killed due to workplace negligence. But the much rarer kind, where a high profile public figure with numerous appearances on television where she shares the culture of Spain while speaking with a Spanish accent and struggles at times to remember English words for things:
… turns out to be from Boston. As in born and raised. Part of a region of people known for an outrageous accent, but who sound nothing like this and know how to say "cucumber." But who do sound quite a bit like Hilaria has in numerous other TV appearances when her fake Spanish accent vanished faster than Kevin Costner's British accent in Robin Hood:
Well, over the weekend, these two disparate and yet still very much connected (by marriage) weird stories collided at the intersection of Celebrity Scandal Ave and Gossip Media Blvd, when Hilaria was swarmed by reporters in New York:
As a refresher, this is her speaking in her native tongue, Masshole:
Here's the thing. If a mother with young children wants to implore the leeches in the celebrity press to back off and leave her alone as she's just trying to take care of her kids, she'll get nothing but support from all normal people. She's a human being and deserves her privacy at a moment like that. But lapse into an accent that is nothing but an affectation that has been exposed to the whole world months ago, and you lose all sympathy.
And enough with this "I am of two cultures and talk this way when I've been in Spain a lot" ragtime. It's preposterous. If Spanish was her first language, absolutely I could see her going back to it in moments of excitement or stress. In fact, it's a trope. Like how Ricky Ricardo would start going off in Spanish whenever Lucy would pull one of her hare-brained schemes or two chefs will start arguing in French or whatever. But you don't lapse back into an accent that isn't yours. And that never was.
I spent 10 days in Italy a couple of summers ago, and didn't come back sounding like I'm Pavarotti. I've taken cabs driven by guys who where clearly born elsewhere but have been driving a hack in Boston for 30 years. And not one of them has ever leaned out the window and yelled, "Hey, ahsshole! Whattare ya, retahdid? Ah ya gonna move ya fuckin' cah or whaaat? This chick has been living inside Rte 495 her whole life. She doesn't get to act like she just got immigrated from Barcelona whenever it suits her.
So way to go. You had every opportunity to expose these reporters for the wretches they are. But you kicked the ball into your own net with this ridiculous fake persona, instead of simply being genuine. I've held off on making the obvious dad joke, but I have no other exit ramp off this highway, so here goes.
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This whole thing is fucking Hilaria-ous.