Hilaria Baldwin has always been a Spanish wannabe – but she really put her foot in her mouth when she changed her name from Hillary, says her old dance partner.
“The whole ‘Hilaria’ thing is hilarious to me,” Alexander Rechits, who danced in competition with the famous man who bends yoga from 2006 to 2009, told the New York Times.
Rechits, who knew American actor Alec Baldwin’s 36-year-old wife, Hillary Hayward-Thomas, said it was clear even then that he wanted to look like he wasn’t.
“I understand why he did it,” Rechits said in an interview Wednesday, adding that he considers Hilaria sweet and talented.
“It has always been her desire to be considered Spanish,” he said.
“She had roots in Spain, her brother lived there, she visited a lot there,” he said, referring to the fact that Hilaria’s parents now live in Mallorca and her family would travel to Spain when she was little.
“But Hillary is a very good strong name, so why would you change that when you were born here and not born in Spain?” said the native of Belarus.
“I have many nicknames in Russian. But I’m still Alexander wherever I go. “
Hilaria, who has no Spanish ancestors, was subjected to fire because she is allegedly misrepresented as Spanish – repeatedly referring to Spain as her “home”, sometimes adopting a thick Spanish accent and failing to correct numerous publications and even one of her official web biographies that falsely said she was born in Mallorca.
For her wedding to Alec in 2012, she wore a traditional white Spanish mantle veil and waved a groom’s flamenco fan at an altar in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan, while the couple sold rings inscribed in Spanish and danced with Puerto Rican crooner Luis Miguel.
The lifestyle influencer was forced to go on social media over the weekend to admit that she was a “white girl” who was born in Boston, originally named Hillary, and went to high school in Massachusetts.