Alec Baldwin and Hilaria Baldwin have a considerable age difference of 26 years. While it’s hardly shocking to see an actor married to a much younger woman, these relationships can often lead to some interesting dynamics within the extended family. In the Baldwins’ case, Alec gave his oldest daughter, Ireland Baldwin, a stepmother much closer in age to her than himself. Ireland and Hilaria are 11 years apart, an age gap similar to the one that separates Hilaria and Alec’s oldest and youngest children — the couple’s daughters Carmen and Ilaria are nine years apart.
In other words, Alec’s oldest daughter and his wife could very easily be sisters. But the awkward age gap never got in the way of Hilaria and Ireland’s relationship. When Hilaria came under fire for exaggerating her ties to Spain in late 2020, Ireland jumped to her defense. “It’s so pathetic that anyone would wanna play detective, and dig that deep into someone’s life that they don’t know, don’t know anything about, how they were raised, who they were actually raised by,” she said on her Instagram Stories (via Page Six).
Hilaria has gone so far as to claim she wouldn’t have invested in the relationship with Alec had Ireland not approved of it. “I [was] not going to be the wicked stepmother. My place in life is not to come into a family and cause problems,” she said in a March 2025 episode of “The Baldwins” (via New York Post). Hilaria and Ireland’s closeness in age has also put them in similar life stages.
Hilaria and Ireland Baldwin had babies around the same time
When Ireland Baldwin got pregnant with her daughter Holland in the winter of 2022, her stepmother had recently given birth to her seventh sibling. Ilaria Baldwin was born in September 2022, while Holland was born the following May (both seen above). “It’s so wonderful because we were pregnant together,” Ilaria said on “The Baldwins” in March. She finds the repercussions of that fascinating. “My baby is Holland’s aunt, and Holland is my baby’s niece,” she highlighted.
Some might find those dynamics awkward, but Hilaria and Ireland are comfortable with what they have. “My relationship with Ireland is, I feel like it’s unique for a stepmom and stepdaughter relationship because that’s technically what we are,” she said. “But first of all, I’m 11 years older than her. I didn’t raise her, and we find tremendous humor in that, and we always have found tremendous humor in that.”
Even though they are close, Ireland and Hilaria only managed to get all the Baldwin babies together for the first time in August 2024. “Holland finally met her aunts and uncles,” Ireland captioned an Instagram post featuring snippets from the encounter. She added a crying-laughing emoji to the caption, suggesting she also finds the situation funny. The meetup hadn’t been possible earlier because they were both busy raising babies while living on opposite coasts. But the bunch stays connected in other ways. “We FaceTime all the time, we talk all the time,” Hilaria said.
