Years before Hilaria Baldwin was exposed as a fraud, she met now-husband Alec Baldwin and skyrocketed from a New York City yoga instructor to the A-list, racking up endless sponsorships with health and wellness products along the way.
Their story seems as normal as any meet-cute, with the couple meeting at a vegan restaurant and beginning a courtship. Of course, there are aspects so ridiculous in their budding romance that it’s wild no one became suspicious sooner.
How they met
Alec, 62, and 36-year-old Hilaria Baldwin—whose real name is Hilary Hayward-Thomas, first met in February 2011 at now-closed vegan restaurant Pure Food and Wine. At the time of their meeting, Hilaria was working as a yoga instructor at Yoga Vida. It’s unknown if she introduced herself as Hilaria or by her government name.
Hilaria revealed in their New York Times wedding announcement the line that Baldwin used to get her attention.
“I was standing near the door with my friends when he walked up and took my hand and said, ‘I must know you,’” she recalled.
Though he needed to know her, Hilaria, who was born and raised in Boston, claimed she had never heard of the famous actor but still was cognizant of their 26-year age gap.
Their courtship
Following their chance encounter, the two eventually went on a first date that resulted in the “30 Rock” star shaking her hand because “he really wanted to get to know me,” Hilaria recalled to the Times.
The hand-shaking grew to become a force of habit it seems, as Hilaria later claimed on the “Ellen DeGeneres Show” that somehow Alec didn’t kiss her for six entire weeks while dating.
“He would tell me all these things, like ‘I’m going to marry you. I’m going to spend the rest of my life with you. We’re going to have a ton of kids,’ and then he would shake my hand at the end of the night,” Hilaria recalled.
The couple moved quickly, getting engaged in April 2012 and marrying two months later on June 30, 2012, at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral.
Their marriage and kids
Alec and Hilaria, who is reportedly now worth $10 million thanks to her lifestyle brand and book the “Living Clearly Method,” dove headfirst into starting their family, welcoming their first of six children, daughter Carmen Gabriela, in August 2013. They would go on to have four more sons, Rafael Thomas (2015), Leonardo Ángel Charles (2016), Romeo Alejandro David (2016) and Eduardo Pau (2020).
The couple secretly welcomed a sixth child together, announcing the news in March 2021.
The former “Saturday Night Live” star, who is reportedly worth $60 million, also has 25-year-old daughter Ireland Baldwin, whom he shares with ex-wife Kim Basinger.
Prior to welcoming their fifth baby, Edu, Hilaria suffered two miscarriages.
“Even though I’d had a miscarriage before, I don’t think I could have fathomed how bad it could feel to have a miscarriage at 16 weeks,” she shared in an essay for Glamour. “I had to go home and sleep with my dead baby inside of me. I felt sick, sour in my belly, and so devastated.”
Hilaria’s cultural identity scandal
Alec and Hilaria’s relationship became particularly newsworthy over the holidays as she was exposed for lying about being born in Spain.
She’s been faking a Spanish accent, which has dropped in and out of many interviews, for years, though it’s unknown what role Alec has played in the purported scheme. He did, however, maintain to Howard Stern that his wife, who finally admitted to being “a white girl,” was “the most healthy person emotionally.”
To anyone who doesn’t believe that, Alec says, “Go f–k yourself.”