Alec Baldwin quits Twitter in wake of backlash over wife Hilaria's heritage claim

James Hibberd
·2 min read
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Taylor Hill/WireImage

Alec Baldwin has had enough of — how do you say? — Twitter.

The actor is giving up on the social platform in the wake of weeks of backlash over his wife Hilaria's Spanish heritage claims.

Declared Baldwin: "Twitter is like a party where everyone is screaming. Not much of a party. Goodbye for now."

The key modifier here: "For now." Few celebrities who declare they're giving up on the scream-party seem to be able to resist re-joining after a suitable cooling-off period. Even Baldwin has quit before, in 2017, following controversial comments he made about sexual assault accusations at the start of the #MeToo movement.

The move comes just weeks after President Donald Trump, who Baldwin impersonated for years on Saturday Night Live, was permanently suspended from the same platform after his tweets surrounding the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol.

The Hilaria Baldwin controversy started in December when a Twitter user pointed out the influencer and yoga studio entrepreneur had a very inconsistent Spanish accent across media clips over the years. While her agency bio and press clippings have claimed she was born in Mallorca, Spain and moved to the U.S. at the age of 19, it turned out she was brought up in Massachusetts, where she went to high school. A clip where she seemed to forget the word for "cucumber" on the Today show, as if she was entirely unfamiliar with what the vegetable was called in English, went viral in particular:

Baldwin has addressed the controversy on Instagram, explaining that spending time in the U.S. and in Spain growing up led to a mix of cultural influences that resulted in how she presents herself. "Yes, I am a white girl," she said. "Culturally, I grew up with the two cultures. So it's really as simple as that" ... I spent a lot of my childhood in Spain. My nuclear family lives in Spain and has lived there for a long time. And I came here — I was moving around a lot — but I came here when I was 19 years old to go to college."

She added to The New York Times that her accent varies based on how happy or upset she is at any given time. "Who is to say what you're allowed to absorb and not absorb growing up?" she added. "This has been a part of my whole life, and I can't make it go away just because some people don't understand it."

Alec Baldwin seemingly defended his wife in a previous video posted to his Instagram account. "There are things that have been said lately about people that I love, that I care about deeply, which are ridiculous," he said "Just ridiculous."

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