Before the dawn of the internet, it seems people could con their way to infamy with a strategic move to a new town. Now, with most people carrying around a geo-tracking, face-identifying supercomputer at all times, adopting a new identity without arousing suspicion is an impressive feat.
Take the example of Hilaria Baldwin. The wife of aging actor Alec Baldwin, Hilaria became a staple of microcelebrity. From a podcast to wellness advice, at-home exercise demonstrations, and seemingly regular interviews with pop culture outlets, Hilaria Baldwin had a brand.
A confident Spanish woman with a brood of young children, Hilaria presented herself as relatable yet exotic. She mythologized an origin story of leaving Mallorca never having been the U.S., stumbling into her celebrity husband and winning him over with her Spanish beauty. We would soon see just how mythologized.
With each of her many children, the names became more flamboyantly Spanish. The family even landed the cover of Hola! Magazine for their multi-culturalism. She cultivated a brand of sophisticated international mother and wellness guru with endless photos of her lithe physique with a seemingly endless train of little blond babies in tow.
But it was fake. Hilaria was, in fact, born Hillary Thomas in the state of Massachusetts. When we locked everyone in their houses and plugged them into computers (that time known as 2020), things unraveled for Hilaria. Bitter people on the internet dug around to find eye-opening clips of Hilaria’s highly changeable accent. Best beloved was the clip of Hilaria at a cooking demonstration very carefully forgetting the English word for …ehm, how you say? Cucumber!
It’s odd that in a culture that idolizes people who pretend to be other people for a living, someone who takes the proposition seriously and commits to pretending to be someone else has committed an outrage. Even more bizarre: despite the endless analysis of her accent, there was little discussion from Spanish speakers about whether she can speak Spanish. Are there any clips of her conversing in her “native” language? Trying on an accent is amateur’s play; speaking a language fluently is a more impressive feat.
No one bothered to ask. She committed the unforgivable sin of cultural appropriation.
Case closed. Career ended. Justice served.
But it wasn’t. Hilaria didn’t let the ship go down. Issuing strange and inscrutable public statements in her pajamas, she quietly changed her name to Hilaria Thomas, as if that explained everything, and moved right along. Less than two years later with two new one-year-olds while heavily pregnant, she’s still at it. Regular celebrity gossip rag appearances, posting to social media, nurturing the brand she invested herself in.
And that impressive ability to persevere might actually be the real reason people can’t stand her. Is she uncomplicated? Certainly not. There does seem to be blatant misrepresentation and outright lies. The move to posture as a Spanish woman was arguably strategic: how to get away with seeming exotic while basically just being some white lady? Spain is a good choice. Hilaria is likely of a generation that can get away with such a grift because her every moment of high school and college was not plastered on the internet.
If Hilaria was just an eccentric lady who acted like she was from a different part of the world than she really was, it’s likely people wouldn’t have cared much. Given that her husband is a long-established figure in the entertainment industry, it’s not as though she had to have her own career. Yet, she worked tirelessly to cultivate a following. That self-promotion and personal brand was the real undoing.
To understand the outrage, one has to venture into the strange world of Instagram. In the legendary words of Queen, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
The obvious caveat with an investigation of Hilaria Baldwin’s public image is we are dealing with a known liar. She may be lovely, friendly, and delusional. She may be a narcissistic and dangerous woman. Either way, the willful deception is rather disturbing. Bear this in mind when viewing the disorienting array of video clips of a super fit pregnant mom bouncing, twisting, squatting, gyrating, and doing headstands. Yes, this is the exercise routine promoted by Hilaria in her super Spanish woman/former yoga instructor persona.
This dizzying series of miniscule activities is, in fact, a great way to maintain physical fitness. If there were a pregnant woman as fit as Ms. Thomas—more on that later—this might indeed be the way to maintain strength through the busy, child-bearing years. Bizarre snippets of Hilaria bouncing on the balls of her feet in an ornate bathroom or doing orchestrated plank exercises in a bikini in her bedroom are all par for the course. The strength and agility cultivated through five minutes here and there throughout a busy day with young children is impressive and thought-provoking.
But is Hilaria actually pregnant? The question is an outrage to our Spanish lady, but, remember, she’s not actually Spanish. Having been exposed as a liar, Hilaria scoffed at rumors that her pregnancies are fake, the children carried by surrogates. Seeing her lingerie-model physique mere weeks after having each baby (because, of course, she posts newborn photos in her lingerie), it’s a reasonable question.
In an hilarious move, Hilaria brought home a baby carried by surrogate months after giving birth to a baby last year. Surely, that will clear things up. Definitely no surrogates here! If Hilaria is a sincere woman, we can only tell her as we tell small children: once you have broken trust, we can’t believe anything you say. The truth is precious, and those who toy with it have a high price to pay.
Ah, Hilaria, she played us at our own game. Pretending to be something that she is not she may have even fooled herself. Or perhaps just knew she could fool all of us saps. What really offends people about Hilaria, though—make no mistake—is the unrelenting perseverance, the steady gains of squats at the bathroom sink, lunges across the pristine kitchen floor. Hilaria showed us all the dedication she has to her fitness and her scams. It is a strange place to find great natural virtue, and it drives us mad. That is the real reason people love to hate Hilaria.
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