Speaking with Alec Baldwin on her podcast last year, the talk show host Kelly Ripa made a pitch for him and his wife: “When I think about you and Hilaria and your seven young kids — now, I know what you’re going to say, but just go with me — this has reality TV written all over it,” she said.
He didn’t dismiss the idea. In fact, he said the couple had already received pitches, and made one or two themselves.
And on Tuesday, Baldwin, who is scheduled to stand trial next month on a charge of involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the film “Rust,” announced that a reality show featuring the couple and their “seven growing kids” would be coming next year to TLC. Its working title is “The Baldwins.”
“We’re inviting you into our home to experience the ups and downs, the good, the bad, the wild and the crazy,” Alec Baldwin said in a video announcement with Hilaria that he posted to Instagram on Tuesday, interspersed with footage from inside their busy home.
The announcement of the new show comes at a delicate time for Baldwin, 66, as he prepares to go on trial in New Mexico in the “Rust” shooting. Baldwin, who has pleaded not guilty in the case, has denied responsibility for the death of the cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, who was killed when a gun that he was rehearsing with, which was not supposed to be loaded with live ammunition, fired a real bullet that struck her. Baldwin’s lawyers are continuing to seek the case’s dismissal, placing blame for the tragedy on the movie’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was convicted in March of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to 18 months in prison.
Lawyers for Baldwin, who had a starring role in the western, have written in court papers that the tragedy has made it difficult for the actor to get work.
In the podcast with Ripa, which was posted last November, Baldwin, who lives in New York, said that the more children that were added to his family, the more difficult it got for him to take acting jobs away from home. (Bringing them to location is expensive, he added, noting the costs of plane tickets, hotels and nannies.)
“Everything I do is filtered through the idea of my family: jobs I take, jobs I don’t take,” he said on the episode, adding that the ability to work from home had made the idea of a reality show attractive.
The network that greenlit the show, TLC, is the one behind a broad array of reality titles, including “90 Day Fiancé,” “Say Yes to the Dress” and “Dr. Pimple Popper.” In describing the show, the network noted that “Alec and Hilaria Baldwin have been making headlines since they were married nearly 12 years ago.”
Indeed. Their Spanish-inspired wedding at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral in New York City drew a flurry of press coverage, and entertainment news sites covered the arrival of each child. (Baldwin has an eighth child, Ireland Baldwin, whom he had with his former wife, Kim Basinger.) The attention on the couple grew less comfortable when Hilaria Baldwin, who has become a parenting and fitness influencer over the years, became the subject of an internet investigation into how much of a connection to Spain she actually has.
In the aftermath of the “Rust” tragedy, the couple has sometimes bristled at the paparazzi that have showed up at their door, but they have also been consistent in giving their social media followers glimpses into their home life, posting frequent photos and videos of the family.