While reflecting on her high-profile marriage to Alec Baldwin, Hilaria Baldwin recalled selling the first photos of the couple’s eldest kids.
During the Wednesday, December 10, episode of “The Viall Files” podcast, Hilaria, 41, was asked about her decision to publicly share photos of her and Alec’s children on social media.
“I don’t think there’s a right answer but I found that the more I [tried to hide them], the more [interest] there was. The culture — even though 12 years ago is not a long time — it was very different back then,” she noted. “So I sold the first photos of the first few kids.”
Hilaria clarified that she “donated all the money” to charity.
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“It felt like a gross thing anyway. So I was going to do it and then I donated that money,” she added. “Our first child was $95,000 and I donated all of that. It felt meaningful.”
The reality star wanted to find a way to help others. “I donated it to an organization in Mallorca, where my family lives. It was for children who have been sexually abused,” she explained. “So I wanted to say, ‘OK, here’s the system. Somebody’s going to make money off of this. There’s money to be had and I’m going to put that in a good place.’”
Since then, Hilaria noticed that interest has waned.
“That was what I did with my first few. It became less of a thing as I had more children and for everybody since the business is changing,” she continued. “I just started sharing them on Instagram. It went from tons of people trying to get this photo to I put it on there. What I learned from somebody who’s much more famous than me is the more that you put the photo up, the lower the bounty is and the less harassment you get.”
She concluded: “It just depends on weighing how much mental distress it was causing us. It was tremendous mental distress [on] Alec who has a lot of trauma. It would really bother him and get us into not fun situations. So I was just like, ‘This is better.’ So that’s why I do what I do.”
Alec and Hilaria share seven kids: Carmen Gabriela, 12, Rafael Thomas, 10, Leonardo Ángel Charles, 8, Romeo Alejandro David, 7, Eduardo “Edu” Pao Lucas, 5, María Lucía Victoria, 4, and Ilaria Catalina Irena, 3.
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Before finding love with Hilaria, Alec, 67, was married to Kim Basinger from 1993 to 2002. Their divorce was finalized after a bitter custody dispute that later caused tension between Alec and daughter Ireland, 30, whom he shares with Basinger, 72.
“My relationship with my daughter Ireland was so negatively impacted by my divorce with her mother — and having a very protracted custody battle,” Alec recalled on an episode of his and Hilaria’s reality series The Baldwins in March. “The financials were probably a year and a half and everything else was custody. It was just insanity and really tough.”
Alec issued an apology to Ireland (who is now a mom herself to 2-year-old daughter Holland), adding, “One of my most regrettable things was how it affected Ireland. But she is grown and is 29 years old. I have a good relationship with her and she loves the kids [I share with Hilaria]. She is sweet to them and is their older sister, but she isn’t in that pack.”
Alec continued: “This is why I am so focused on [my daughter] Carmen and I want to have a good relationship with her. Because I have a girl all over again.”
