The Baldwins reality show announced ahead of manslaughter trial

Alec Baldwin is a family man through and through. The poster for Baldwin’s eponymous new TLC show — featuring the actor surrounded by his wife and gaggle of kids — is proof. The heartwarming scene almost made Cockburn forget that Baldwin accidentally shot and killed a crew member for the film Rust back in 2021.  

On Tuesday, Baldwin and his faux-Spanish wife Hilaria announced their upcoming show via Instagram, inviting viewers into their home to see the “ups and downs, the good, the bad, the wild and the crazy.” The fifty-second promo features the couple’s seven kids, all under ten, screaming in their sterile, white New York City apartment — music to Cockburn’s ears. 

The announcement comes just a month before Baldwin’s manslaughter trial is set to begin. In January, Baldwin was indicted on the charge after fatally shooting Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on set. If convicted, Baldwin faces up to eighteen months behind bars. Cockburn must admit watching Baldwin’s pint-sized gang romp around prison sounds better than what TLC has pitched. It would also allow Baldwin to meet up with Hannah Gutierrez Reed, the convicted armorer from Rust who brought live ammo on set. Reed, who has expressed anger at being blamed for Hutchins’s death, said that she would like to see Baldwin in jail. Cockburn would like to see a prison yard fight. 

Gloria Allred, the lawyer for Hutchins’s family, said she doesn’t trust the timing of the announcement. “This appears, to me, to be a calculated and cynical public relations move to try to influence the jury pool in New Mexico to think of him as a sympathetic family man rather than as the killer of Halyna Hutchins,” Allred said. Since Baldwin and Hilaria have repeatedly complained about paparazzi ambushing their family, Cockburn finds it odd they’ve willingly sacrificed their children to TLC execs. But if it keeps Baldwin out of prison, anything will be worth it. 

Baldwin’s trigger-happy fingers are ancillary to the show’s real scandal though — Hilaria’s American accent. Suspiciously absent from the announcement was her exotic timbre and tone. Born Hillary Hayward-Thomas in Boston, Hilaria decided to tweak her very aristocratic-sounding name and speak in a Spanish accent at some point in her twenties. Although neither of her parents are Hispanic, Hilaria said she traveled to Spain every year as a child and grew up in a bilingual household. She briefly tried to convince everyone that she was from Mallorca, forgot the English word for cucumber on live TV, and has named her kids everything from Romeo Alejandro to Eduardo Pao Lucas.

Hilaria has held onto the grift for so long, Cockburn missed hearing her breathy accent in the promo. At least, the show won’t require subtitles for non-Spanish speakers.