Alec Baldwin Leaves Twitter Amid Wife Hilaria's Spanish Heritage Controversy

01/19/2021 08:29 am EST

Actor Alec Baldwin announced plans to leave Twitter behind on Monday, calling it a "party where everyone is screaming." The decision came several weeks after his wife, Hilaria Baldwin, became mired in a cultural appropriation scandal. Although Hilaria was born in Boston, she long claimed to be born in Mallorca, Spain, and was heard pretending to have a Spanish accent in several interviews since marrying Baldwin in 2012.

"Twitter is like a party where everyone is screaming," the 30 Rock actor wrote on Twitter Monday. "Not much of a party. Goodbye for now." Earlier in the day, Baldwin retweeted a Time article about Martin Luther King Jr. and a CNN article on the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. He also shared a quote from King's famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Baldwin shared the same quote on his Instagram page Monday as well.

Hilaria's scandal began on Dec. 21, when a Twitter user shared a clip from a Today show interview in which she appeared to not know the English word for "cucumber." The Twitter user shared other examples of Hilaria using a Spanish accent on morning show appearances. The tweet quickly went viral, inspiring other outlets to dig into her past. Some accused her of cultural appropriation, especially considering how she was often identified as being born in Mallorca and was covered positively in Hispanic media.

On Dec. 27, Hilaria responded to the criticism, saying she is white and spent "some" of her childhood in Spain and "some" in Massachusetts. She also claimed the online biographies listing Mallorca as her birthplace were mistaken and not approved by her. Hilaria said her parents and her brother now live in Spain, but she chose to live in the U.S. She also discussed her decision to raise her children, all of whom have Spanish names, as "bilingual."

Baldwin also issued a strongly-worded defense of his wife and criticizing social media in general. "We live in a world where we're hidden behind the anonymity of social media, and people feel they can say anything," Baldwin said in his own Instagram video. "They want to spray it all over you and spit it all over you, their venom and their hate." Although he did not mention Hilaria by name, he said some of the things said about people "that I love, that I care about deeply, which are just ridiculous." He said the majority of what's been said "is false," adding, "It's so spectacularly false. And they've said it about people I love, false things. When you love somebody, you want to defend them."

Baldwin and Hilaria are parents to five children, Carmen, 7, Rafael, 5, Leonardo, 4, Romeo, 2, and Eduardo, who was born in September. Last week, sources told Page Six Baldwin was quarantining "for months" at a home in Amagansett, New York, a mile away from his family's home in the Hamptons. He previously told fans he was quarantining away from his family for their safety while he travels back and forth to Manhattan for work.

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