Alec and Hilaria Baldwin’s reality show captures ‘extraordinarily difficult’ time ahead of ‘Rust’ trial

Alec Baldwin feared for his family and fate going into the Rust trial.

The new TLC reality show The Baldwins captures the unsettling time for the actor and his wife, Hilaria, before the trial began in July 2024. The involuntary manslaughter case, stemming from the accidental shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, was dismissed with prejudice midtrial, but the couple didn’t know that when they were filming.

“This past year was so hard,” Alec, 66, said in a candid moment in the series, which premieres on Feb. 23. “I’m worried.”

He said he was “happier when I’m asleep than when I’m awake,” but Hilaria, 41, and the couple’s seven young children helped carry him through the situation.

“I honestly, from the bottom of my soul, I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t have you and these kids going through this,” he said to his wife of 12 years. “I never would have made it.”

Speaking of the situation, Hilaria said, “Watching Alec and his pain in no way is it meant to compare with Halyna’s loss, with her son who has no mom. It breaks my heart.”

Hilaria said those closest to him had “seen his mental health decline,” noting he was diagnosed with PTSD after the accidental gun discharge. She noticed his OCD flare up ahead of the trial.

“He says in his darkest moments: ‘If an accident had to have happened this day, why am I still here? Why couldn’t it have been me?’” Hilaria said.

They talked about protecting their children — daughters Carmen, María, Ilaria and sons Rafael, Leonardo, Romeo and Edu — from the “unthinkable tragedy.”

“We are going to feel and carry this pain forever,” Hilaria said. “This will be a part of our family story.”

But at that moment in time, the possibility of a prison sentence for Alec was real.

“You have this constant nausea here, the panic, the inability to sleep,” Hilaria said. “This trial is happening, and Alec could go to prison. … If I don’t bring him back from New Mexico, what are we supposed to do?”

Hilaria, a yoga teacher turned author, enjoys reality stardom seemingly more than her husband and used the exposure to address internet chatter about herself, including “accent-gate.” The Boston native was famously accused of faking her Spanish accent.

“I’m raising my kids to be bilingual,” she said of the controversy. “I was raised bilingual. All my nuclear family now lives over in Spain. … I love English. I also love Spanish, and when I mix the two, it doesn’t make me inauthentic. [It] makes me normal. … That’s called being human.”

Hilaria said she’d be lying if she said the criticism — including accusations that she is a gold digger — “didn’t make me sad and it didn’t hurt and it didn’t put me in dark places.”

The show has lighter moments, showing the absolute chaos of raising that many children along with four dogs and four cats. Rafael’s birthday party saw their brood frosting a box cake with kids climbing on the counter and digging right in.

The Baldwins premieres Feb. 23 at 10 ET on TLC, with new episodes airing weekly.

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