Hilaria Baldwin says she and Alec Baldwin have had difficult conversationswith their eldest children about the Peace shooting.
Hilaria told Additional that she and her husband told Carmen, 9 and Rafael,7 about the Oct. 21, 2021 death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Alec, thefilm’s star and producer, was rehearsing with a prop gun that contained a liveround, which fatally killed Hutchins. He has maintained that he never pulledthe trigger.
“We’re not OK,” Hilaria, 38, said about a year after the shooting. “We can’tbe OK. No one is OK. It was, and is, a tragedy that nobody could ever haveimagined.” She called Hutchins “an incredible, incredible woman in so manydifferent ways” and said her death impacts so many — her young son withhusband Matthew Hutchins, their family, her co-workers, fans and everyone wholoved her.
The Witches Anonymous podcast host said she’s obviously also concerned for64-year-old Alec, admitting he’s had nightmares about the tragedy.
“I worry about him,” she admitted. “I mean, can you imagine? Nobody can… Whenyou go through something hard … not every day is going to be the same. Youhave moments … that are very hard. Nights are hard. Nightmares are hard.” Shesaid she shows her support of her husband of 10 years by saying, “I’m here andI’m going to take care of you — and I said that from the moment we realizedwhat had happened.”
Hilaria said they put on a united front when it came to telling Carmen andRafael, not revealing a timeline for which the initial conversation tookplace.
“There’s no way that you can explain this because it’s awful,” she said. “Ithought I was going to do this without Alec and he said, ‘No, I can’t be acoward. I have to be there…'”
While they told them, Carmen said, “‘Why are you telling me this? … I want toun-know this,'” Hilaria recalled. “She used the word ‘un-know,’ and Alec said,’I want to un-know it, too.’ I think everyone wants to un-know it … becauseit’s real.”
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In early October, it was announced the film would resume production after asettlement was reached with Halyna’s husband, who will serve as a producer.
“We can go forward and talk about gun safety on sets, and try to figure outhow this crazy thing happened, and we can go forward and honor Halyna,”Hilaria said. “We can remember her, continuing her legacy for her, for herfamily and we can take care of everybody who’s still here who isextraordinarily damaged by this awful tragedy. That’s all that we can do, butwe can’t un-know it .”
Alec was rehearsing a scene for the low-budget western film on the New Mexicoset when he said he was given what he was told was a “cold gun,” containing noammunition. At what he said was Hutchins’s instruction, he cocked the vintagegun, but claims he did not pull the trigger and it discharged. The guncontained a live round, which never should have been on the set let alone inthe prop gun, which fatally shot Hutchins and also hit director Joel Souza,who survived. An FBI forensics report stated that the gun could not have beenfired without pulling the trigger.
There have been several lawsuits over alleged safety issues in the wake of theshooting, including Hutchins’s widower’s wrongful death case, which wassettled. Alec filed his own in November, alleging negligence of several of thefilm’s crew members in an attempt to “clear his name.”
For over a year, the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department investigated theshooting. In late October, investigators have turned over the case to Santa FeFirst Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies, who will decide whetherto press criminal charges against anyone involved in the shooting.
Baldwin, who “hired a private investigator” to do his own investigation, hassaid he doesn’t believe he will face any criminal charges.
Amid the tragedy, Hilaria and Alec have also had beautiful moments, like thebirth of their seventh child in September. (Alec is also dad to model IrelandBaldwin from his marriage to Kim Basinger.) Hilaria said she named the babygirl Ilaria after herself because “I figured, men do it — why can’t I do it,too?”
As for having more kids, she said anything is possible (“I would say we’redone, but I said we were done with six”). She’s waiting for Alec to “do hispart,” alluding to a vasectomy, but until that happens, “things can happen.”