The Hillary Thomas/Hilaria Baldwin scandal was its own hilarious thing. The outing of “Hilaria” as just another non-Spanish, non-Latina, white American woman from Boston was one of the funniest stories of the past six months. It was like our gift for surviving 2020: “Here you go, a moment of pure joy!” Hilaria’s thing was such a long-running con, and it involved so many lies, so many half-truths, so many fake accents.

So, that was all one thing. But I’m really enjoying the off-shoot of the main Hilaria story, which is other celebrities commenting on the record about how crazy it is that Alec Baldwin married a con artist who pretended to be Spanish. Amy Schumer’s comments were hilarious, and now Salma Hayek has chimed in. Salma and Alec Baldwin are friends, and there’s some theory that Alec adored Salma when they worked together on 30 Rock and that’s why Hilaria created this whole “Hola, I am from, how you say, Espana” persona. I have no idea of the timeline on that, but Salma has met Hilaria and Salma thinks it’s all… fine.

Salma Hayek is speaking out about the controversy involving Hilaria Baldwin’s heritage. On Monday, Feb. 1, the Oscar nominee—who portrayed Alec Baldwin’s love interest on 30 Rock, appeared on Andy Cohen’s radio show and addressed the accusations about Hilaria’s upbringing. “A lot of my friends asked me, ‘Did you hear about this? Oh my god!’” Salma recalled on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy. “We all lie a little bit. She makes my friend happy. She fooled me because she’s such a good mother and she has five of them! And, you know, I don’t care.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to betray or hurt anybody’s feelings,” she continued. “And I don’t know if it’s right or if it’s wrong. I’m not gonna judge somebody just because of that one thing. And I think, I feel honor that somebody wants to be, their alter ego it’s to be like something that is similar to my roots. It makes me feel proud that people are inspired because you know, I am Mexican Lebanese, but my grandparents, my ancestors on my mother’s side are Spanish.”

Salma went on to say she thinks Hilaria, who has been accused of faking her Spanish accent, is “smart to want to be Spanish,” adding, “We’re cool.”

The 53-year-old Frida actress also acknowledged that it is “a bizarre story,” but continued to defend Hilaria. “It is a bizarre story, but don’t we all create our own character in life? I mean, this might be extreme. OK. I don’t care. She’s not, not a bad person, not a bad person, a good person, a good mother and a good wife.”

Salma added that, in addition to having a good relationship with Alec, Hilaria is also “very kind to me,” noting, “That’s all I care about.”

[From E! News]

I think Salma is being very nice, but she also wants people to remember that it actually is really cool to be Spanish and of course many people would love to be able to call themselves Spanish. Again, I don’t doubt that Hillary Thomas fantasized about being “exotic” (yet white) and “from Spain,” but it’s one thing to visit the country and have those fantasies, and quite another to fake an accent for years, pretend not to know English, incorporate “Spanish culture” into your wedding claiming it’s part of “cultura de mi familia,” and taking up space which could have gone to native Spanish speakers and actual Latinas. I would have thought that Salma would at least be mad about that last part, but I guess not. She’s basically like “well, who amongst us hasn’t faked an accent for years and invented a persona to marry a movie star?”

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, WENN.