"Another Rachel Dolezal"- Internet calls out Hilaria Baldwin's accent for 'forgetting' the word Onion in viral video 

Hilaria Baldwin took to Instagram on Monday, December 30, to share a video of herself cooking a traditional Spanish tortilla dish. In the video, the entrepreneur appeared to forget the English word for ‘onion,’ which has sparked a discussion online. This is not the first that a discussion regarding her ethnicity has taken place on social media.

In the Instagram video, Hilaria Baldwin, who is also actor Alec Baldwin's wife, appeared to forget the English word for the aforementioned vegetable and replaced it with the Spanish version. Baldwin said:

“My husband hates… cebollas.”

In response to the video, one netizen commented:

The X user was referring to activist Rachel Dolezal, the activist who went viral for claiming to be of Black race despite being born to Caucasian parents.

Meanwhile, several other netizens had similar reactions. Comments online read:

“Again: her high school classmates confirmed that her name is Hillary and she was a standard american from boston growing up without the ‘latina’ accent… this is performance art,” an X user said.

“Her commitment to this bit is commendable,” another platform user said.

“She was born and raised in the United States to English-speaking parents– but doesn’t know the word for onion,” a netizen said.

Hilaria Baldwin, born Hillary Hayward-Thomas, is the daughter of Kathryn Hayward and David Thomas Jr. She is of English, French-Canadian, German, Irish, and Slovak descent. Meanwhile, other reactions read:

“This was totally scripted, and they succeeded in getting everyone to talk about them.Lol,” an X user said.

“She’s more cooked than the onions,” an internet user said.

“Entertainment at its best,” an X user said.

Hilaria revealed to The New York Times back in 2010 that her parents moved to Spain in 2011 and she went on to call the country “home.” Meanwhile some of her supporters said on the internet:

"i forget words too, that happens a lot when you are bilingual," an X user said.

"Leave her alone. That's not fair," another platform user said.

"Maybe nervous cuz of the camera," an internet user said.

---

Hilaria Baldwin’s Spain-origin controversy began through Hola! magazine

Hilaria Baldwin mentioned for the first time that she was of Spanish origin while appearing on multiple Hola! magazine feature stories. Vox reported back in 2020 that she stated in the interview that she was born in Spain and that Spanish was her native language. Her talent agency also reportedly stated that she was born in Mallorca.

However, later on Baldwin admitted to being a “white girl” on Instagram. In the aforementioned New York Times interview she also defended herself by saying:

"Where is the smoking gun? My intentions are I'm living my life and my life is created by my parents, my different experiences, my languages, my culture."

She further elaborated her being part of two cultures in a February 2021-released Instagram video where she said:

"My parents raised my brother and me with two cultures, American and Spanish, and I feel a true sense of belonging to both."

Back in 2015, Baldwin appeared on the Today show and while preparing gazpacho for a cooking segment, she said in an accented English:

“We have tomatoes, we have, um, how do you say in English? Cucumber!”

Her husband Alec also seemingly substantiated her claims of being of Spanish-origin back in 2013 when he explicitly told David Letterman in an interview that his “wife is from Spain.”

Hilaria has not addressed the recent ‘onion’ video and the backlash it has currently faced at the time of writing this article.