The Biggest Revelations in Hilaria Baldwin's Memoir — From Marriage Issues With Alec to the Rust Shooting

Hilaria Baldwin put herself in her own words in her memoir, Manual Not Included, and we dug up the details you won’t want to miss to give you the TL;DR version.

From revelations about her relationship with Alec Baldwin, life as a mom of seven, and candid descriptions about the impact of the 2021 Rust shooting on her family, Hilaria didn’t shy away from the details of her personal life.

The book chronicles Hilaria’s relationship with Alec from the beginning, through to when they got married in 2012, and up as far as their life now. The pair has welcomed seven kids together: Carmen, 11, Rafael, 9, Leonardo, 8, Romeo, 6, Eduardo, 4, María Lucía, 4, and Ilaria, 2. Alec is also the father of 29-year-old Ireland, with his ex, Kim Basinger.

Bouncing between funny anecdotes and exhaustive descriptions of some of her more challenging moments, Hilaria paints a picture of life in what she calls “Public-Figure-Landia,” and what it’s like to have the world pick you apart.

Here are the biggest details from Hilaria Baldwin’s book, Manual Not Included.

She’s No Gold Digger

In the first few pages of the book, Hilaria wrote that she “wasn’t a gold digger,” and defends their age gap — Hilaria was 27 when she met Alec at 53. She wrote that she has spent years trying to convince the public that she is “in this for the right reasons.”

“I have given a lot of thought to why people want to try to label me [a gold digger], because I’ve lived with these attacks for a while now,” she wrote. “If you are a successful gold digger, you have one kid, spend a few years with your husband, then get out of the marriage and take his money… I can tell you that seven kids shouldn’t be in the gold-digging curriculum, and I would probably receive a solid D– for this choice. Kids are expensive and a lot of hard work.”

Hilaria insists that their romance was founded on a deep emotional connection, saying that, “for the first six weeks that we dated, Alec just wanted to talk.”

“It wasn’t purely about physical attraction; it was true respect,” she wrote. “No one had ever wanted to get to know me in quite that way before.”

She Drastically Changed Alec’s Life

Hilaria hit back at claims she controls her husband’s eating by explaining that early in their relationship, he told her that he was prediabetic. To help out her then-boyfriend, the former yoga instructor “made lists of foods to eat and not eat” and, in time, Alec “started to feel much better.”

“Alec committed to healthier eating,” she wrote. “He made that choice: it wasn’t me. I was a good partner to him — I never shamed him, only encouraged him.”

She Contemplated Divorcing Alec

After marrying in 2012, the couple hit a rough patch throughout the early years of parenthood. Hilaria wrote that she felt lonely in the lead-up to and aftermath of her first daughter’s 2012 birth, sharing that Alec took work calls while she was in labor.

She added that she and Alec “fought a lot” due to his busy work schedule, leaving her alone with baby Carmen in their New York apartment. This continued into her second pregnancy, especially after Alec left her to go do a play in the Hamptons while their newborn son was in the NICU.

“I was so focused on how I thought things should be, and Alec was so set in his ways. Neither one of us would budge. I took my rings off as a sign that I was potentially ready to walk,” she wrote. “Entering into a relationship as cement blocks will end in divorce, and that was where we were heading. We had to warm up and melt our solid selves, be willing to look within and see how we could do better.”

The couple worked on things and renewed their vows, and by the time her third baby was born, Hilaria opted for a more independent approach to childbirth, waiting until she was already hooked up to an epidural before deciding to tell Alec.

A Celebrity Once ‘Undermined’ Her Parenting

In one anecdote from the book, Hilaria recalled an awkward run-in with a celebrity at a pool. The unnamed star interjected when Hilaria was attempting to stop her frustrated toddler daughter from eating too much bread before dinner.

“Then a very famous actress interjected with ‘Oh, gosh! Children just know what they should eat and are very in tune with their bodies, so trust their wisdom and let her eat bread!’ She had spoken with such loftiness that she might as well have been Marie Antoinette talking about cake,” Hilaria wrote.

“Then she picked up the breadbasket and offered Carmen another piece. I became very quiet, stunned at being undermined in front of my daughter at the very moment I was trying to parent,” Hilaria added, detailing how the actress kept offering her daughter more and more bread until eventually, Hilaria insisted on leaving.

“The problem was that I didn’t have the confidence or know-how to stand up for what I felt was right,” she reflected. “She was famous and beautiful and older than I was, with older children, and therefore more experienced… I should have looked the actress in the eye and thanked her for her experience, then removed my kids from her presence.”

She Has ADHD and Dyslexia

Hilaria wrote that she was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia as a child, and spent years feeling insecure about it. She wrote that she used to feel like she was not “smart in the right way,” but has come to appreciate being neurodivergent.

Hilaria also wrote that being neurodivergent has contributed to her mixing up Spanish and English words, including in that infamous moment on the Today show when she appeared to forget the English word for “cucumber,” a moment that contributed to viral speculation that she’s “faking” her Spanish accent.

“I have a brain that is one part English, one part Spanish, seven dollops of mom brain, a heavy pour of distraction when I get stuck or go off on tangents and forget what I am saying while I am saying it,” Hilaria wrote. “If you only knew how loud it is in my brain at any given moment!”

The Controversy Over Her Accent Left Her in a Dark Place

Hilaria goes back to the accent controversy several times throughout the book, writing that she is “constantly practicing tuning out opinions” about her upbringing (critics claim Hilaria falsely presented herself as Spanish through her accent when in reality she grew up in Boston and spoke English throughout her childhood.)

“There was a coordinated mob after me at a time when people were home, lonely, angry, and bored,” she wrote about the late-2020 viral controversy. “Cancellation became the new gladiator sport. Especially against women.”

“I started to really unravel. I was confused. I felt lost. I missed my family. I couldn’t eat. I got very thin. I started to question my sanity. I started to question if I was a good person,” she recalled. “I returned to what I used to do as a child, and started to call myself stupid. When I woke up, I wanted to be dead. And I got worse and worse and worse.”

She Gets Candid About Pregnancy Loss

Hilaria reflected on suffering two miscarriages in 2019, before getting pregnant with her fifth child. “It’s a horrible club to belong to, yet one that’s often a part of childbearing,” she wrote.

She also recalled hearing a radio report about her pregnancy loss during a cab ride shortly after her second miscarriage. “‘They are talking about me,'” she told the driver. “I was basically having an out-of-body experience.”

… And Surrogacy

In 2020, Hilaria got pregnant with the couple’s fifth child but she and Alec were keen to use their embryos from a previous IVF attempt. Hilaria wrote that she was hesitant to go down the surrogacy route, but an analogy from the woman who ended up carrying her sixth baby helped her embrace the process.

“Imagine we’re neighbors and I make a cake with my ingredients and my recipe,” Hilaria recalled her surrogate telling her. “My oven doesn’t work (or, in my case, with Edu, it was currently occupied). So I go to my neighbor’s house and ask to use her oven to bake the cake. She says yes and gives my cake back to me when it’s baked. My recipe, my ingredients, my cake. Her oven.” Hilaria concluded, “This silly example made all the sense in the world.”

She Opens up About the ‘Rust’ Shooting

Hilaria dedicates a chapter of her book to the 2021 death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins who was killed when Alec accidentally fired a prop gun on the set of his film Rust. Hilaria notes that “the tragedy of Halyna’s death, which is not my story to tell,” and focuses on “my own experiences as a wife and a mother.”

“Have you ever ignored a call coming in from your husband? I did on October 21, 2021—actually, it was two calls,” Hilaria wrote. “He then texted me to call him right away and all of a sudden, my heart and my stomach smashed together: Something must have happened. This conversation—and this entire day—was full of confusion, disbelief, pain, nausea, anger, fear, and heartache as the realization of what had occurred became clear over the course of many hours.”

Hilaria recalled paparazzi swarming their New York apartment and following them when the family attempted to escape to Vermont. She also remembers Alec having health issues after the incident, including fainting spells that left him needing a walker.

“The tabloid media will likely create headlines from this chapter,” she wrote, “To feel pain is to be human. By documenting my husband’s pain, I do not take away from anyone else’s. It’s just what it is.”

Before you go, click here to see all the best celebrity memoirs you can read right now.