More than a decade into their marriage, Alec Baldwin and his wife, Hilaria Baldwin, are opening up about their relationship and family more than ever before. The couple stars in the new reality show The Baldwins.
“This series gives viewers a glimpse into our lives as a family—the good, bad, wild, and everything in between,” the couple said in a January statement. The 30 Rock actor, 66, and yoga instructor, 41, certainly have plenty going on.
Since their 2012 wedding, the couple has had three daughters and four sons together (Alec first became a dad in 1995 to his daughter Ireland with his ex-wife, Kim Basinger). Today, their kids are between the ages of 11 and 2 years old. Alec and Hilaria balance their parenting duties with their professional gigs and public personas.
In recent years, their relationship has also weathered Alec’s involvement in the 2021 accidental death of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. The involuntary manslaughter case against Alec, the movie’s star and one of its producers, was dropped days into his high-profile criminal trial this past July.
The Baldwins, which airs Sundays on TLC at 10 p.m. E.T., promises to capture all that. Beyond the cameras, here’s what you need to know about Alec and Hilaria Baldwin’s relationship from the beginning to now.
Alec and Hilaria met in 2011
Back in February 2011, Alec and Hilaria, who was born Hillary Hayward-Thomas, were both dining at the New York City restaurant Pure Food and Wine. He was still in the midst of his Emmy Award–winning turn as Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock, and she was a former professional dancer originally from Boston who cofounded Yoga Vida and opened its first studio in New York the year prior.
At the time, Alec wasn’t looking for a relationship. “I had been married, got divorced. I dated another woman for off and on for quite a while. I’m like, ‘I don’t want to have a girlfriend. I don’t,’” he told People earlier this year. “And so when I met [Hilaria], I was really like, ‘Oh, God. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to do this’. But I mean, I fell madly in love with her.”
Hilaria, who is 25 years younger than Alec, told The New York Times the pickup line he used to start a conversation with her. “I was standing near the door with my friends, when he walked up and took my hand and said, ‘I must know you.’”
Despite Alec’s intense feelings during their first meeting, they took things slow and waited six weeks to kiss. “He would tell me all these things about 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 shared during an appearance on The Ellen Degeneres Show with Alec as the guest host.
By the summer of 2011, they were officially dating.
They got married the next year
After less than a year of dating, Alec proposed to Hilaria on March 31, 2012. Hilaria spilled the details about the proposal during an interview with Extra: “He took me out to Montauk and… he got down on his knee, and then I don’t remember the rest because I started crying, but yeah, he’s very romantic.”
They married soon after on June 30, 2012, at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral in New York City. She was 28, and he was 54. Among the guests at their ceremony were Alec’s brothers Stephen Baldwin and Billy Baldwin, 30 R0ck creator and star Tina Fey, Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels, director Woody Allen, Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay, and environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The couple has 7 kids together
Not long after their wedding, the couple began to have children—a lot of them just like Alec predicted. They welcomed their first child, a daughter named Carmen, in late August 2013. Three sons followed in quick succession: Rafael in June 2015, Leonardo in September 2016, and Romeo in May 2018.
“My wife and I had four kids in 4 ½ years,” Alec said on Late Night with Seth Meyers in 2018. “I go make a movie now, and I’ll turn to my wife and I’ll go, ‘You realize, we’re not going to make any money on this movie. The money I’m making on the movie is just going to cover the hotel bill.’”
Jokes aside, the growing family faced difficulties, too. In April 2019, Hilaria suffered a miscarriage. She shared the news on Instagram, captioning a photo of her husband and four kids: “There was no heartbeat today at my scan...so it’s over…but I have some pretty strong and amazing heartbeats right here.” That November, Hilaria announced she had another miscarriage four months into her pregnancy.
“There is so much mystery why certain souls come into our lives and other do not,” she later shared on Instagram as part of National Infertility Awareness Week. “Being a parent truly is caring in the deepest way for another soul…through that giving energy we nurture ourselves and fill the world with love. I am just as much a mother to my Angel babies as I am to the ones I can physically hold in my arms.”
In September 2020, Alec and Hilaria had another bundle of joy in their arms with the birth of their son Eduardo. Just five months later, they welcomed their second daughter, María Lucía, via a surrogate in February 2021. Hilaria gave birth to their youngest, a daughter named Ilaria, in September 2022.
During their recent interview with People, the couple addressed if they plan to continue expanding their family. “He’s always asking me for more kids,” the yoga instructor shared. “They’re so cute. But my body’s really tired.”
Alec and Hilaria were filming The Baldwins during his 2024 criminal trial
Alongside the joys of family life, the Baldwins have endured controversies over the years. Alec was arrested after biking the wrong way on a New York City street and after a separate parking lot altercation agreed to take an anger management course. Hilaria was accused of falsely claiming Spanish identity (she did visit Spain regularly while growing up, and her parents and older brother now live in Mallorca). But these dustups paled in comparison to a tragedy on the set of Alec’s western film Rust.
On October 21, 2021, Alec was holding a prop gun that accidentally fired, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza. The devastating loss quickly became one of the biggest news stories at the time, particularly as other problems from the New Mexico movie set emerged. The day after the shooting, Alec released a statement on Twitter that read in part, “There are no words to convey my shock and sadness regarding the tragic accident that took the life of Halyna Hutchins, a wife, mother and deeply admired colleague of ours.” He also said he was “fully cooperating with police.”
Alec faced blowback over some of his subsequent comments, including over his denial of pulling the trigger. (An FBI forensic report later concluded the gun couldn’t have gone off without a trigger pull.) Hilaria showed her support for her husband online, subtly at first. That December, she spoke out on her Instagram Story in his defense and said he was suffering from PTSD. “I’m at a place where I’m tired of not talking, and I want to get to a place where I can use my voice to show you that this is not just a famous thing,” she said, “Everybody has trolls. Everybody has people who want to tell you whether you’re good or bad or what you think or what you feel.”
The couple remained united as Alec was charged with involuntary manslaughter following a grand jury indictment in January 2024. After his unsuccessful attempt to have the charge dismissed, his trial began early that July. Hilaria was by his side in court during many proceedings, including on the day the judge dismissed the case due to withheld evidence. Alec still faces a civil lawsuit from Hutchins’ parents and sister, and this January, he sued several authorities attached to his case for “malicious prosecution” among other claims.
Having announced their reality show in June 2024, cameras for The Baldwins were rolling during the trial. The series ended up being a bright spot amid all the stress. “It was an opportunity for us to actually speak. It was a really safe space,” Hilaria told People. “And I think it was also very cathartic, almost like a diary, during a very unsure time of our life. That felt both terrifying and like it could get us through day by day.”
For his part, Alec gave all the credit to Hilaria: “I don’t know where I would be if I didn’t have her. I don’t know what would’ve happened to me.”
Emily Shiffer has worked as a writer for over 10 years, covering everything from health and wellness to entertainment and celebrities. She previously was on staff at SUCCESS, Men's Health, and Prevention magazines. Her freelance writing has been featured in Women's Health, Runner's World, PEOPLE, and more. Emily is a graduate of Northwestern University, where she majored in magazine journalism at the Medill School of Journalism and minored in musicology. Currently residing in Charleston, South Carolina, Emily enjoys instructing barre, surfing, and long walks on the beach with her miniature Dachshund, Gertrude.
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