Alec, what else was your wife faking?
Rubenstein, 88, now reps the angels
ALEC Baldwin, love of my life, obsession of my soul. My super-sized, gelatinous hunk of Soft Serve nondairy product. Failed impersonator of President Donald J. Trump. Duped husband of a lithe and flexible Spanish impersonator.
Oh, babe, how I’ve missed you!
But Alec, dear, sweet, demented Alec. You really need to calm down and listen up.
That woman you married, Hillary/Hilaria, the one with the smoking body and a craving for celebrities with deepseated anger issues, is not all that she seems. That ex-yogi, who has been passing herself off for years as exotic and foreign, turns out to be as spice-less and American as a shopping-mall food court that’s run out of Panda Express.
She’s a full-blown phony! Oh, Alec.
The question that leaps out, like a temper tantrum on steroids, is: What did you know, and when did you know it? You must realize that every word of your wife’s résumé, with the possible exceptions of “the’’ and “and,’’ are as fictional as your Zen?
The brouhaha started after comedian Amy Schumer cheekily reposted (and later deleted) on Instagram a photograph of “Hilaria,’’ the mother of five little Baldwins, wearing sexy lingerie, while holding her baby son, Eduardo “Edu” Pao Lucas. (Ouch.) Apparently, Schumer was taking a jab at Hill’s boastful postpartum lack of stretch marks and baby weight.
Hill was upset with what she considered Schumer’s lithe-body shaming. Hill responded with a recorded message of her displeasure. Except, in place of her usual Spanish inflections — in one TV appearance, she even seemed to forget the English word for “cucumber’’ — this time her accent was pure American.
The ’Net went wild! It started with this tweet from @lenibriscoe: “You have to admire Hilaria Baldwin’s commitment to her decade-long grift where she impersonates a Spanish person.” This was followed by various messages from highschool chums — in Massachusetts. They said “Hillary,’’ that’s what they called her, was as American as a cheeseburger and fries, things she certainly would never touch.
This caused Alec to shoot back with both barrels on Instagram Sunday, bizarrely comparing Briscoe to “used coasters with the rings on them and the stains on them.” Huh?
Finally, Hillary Baldwin outed herself. What a relief !
The bio posted on her speaker’s-agency Web site claiming she was born in Mallorca, Spain, and moved to the United States at age 19 to attend NYU? The printed profile that stated the same? It was all pure fiction. In reality, she admitted, she was born in Boston. Her official name was Hillary Hayward-Thomas.
“When I was growing up, in this country’’ — in this country! — “I would use the name Hillary,’’ she wrote online. She said her parents, who currently live in Majorca, call her Hilaria.
She said in another post that her mother isn’t even Spanish, as has been reported. Of course, she blamed reporters, commentators and other bystanders to her ruse for her deception.
So Hillary-gate ends with an explosion. Oh, Alec. What else has the woman who sleeps beside you been faking?
You can do so much better than that. Hey — my parents were both legitimately European. But never mind.
Who needs the drama?
TWO SUPERSTARS: PR guru of gurus Howard J Rubenstein joins Yankee captain Derek Jeter at the Stadium in 2014 The Bombers were but one of Rubenstein’s highprofile clients and “his positive effect on our franchise cannot be understated,” President Randy Levine said.
HOWARD J. Rubenstein, New York’s most influential public-relations guru of the past half-century, died on Tuesday in his Manhattan home at 88. He was a power broker with grace — a true prince of the city.
Brooklyn-born Rubenstein was technically a publicist. But he was much more — a political kingmaker and a behind-thescenes macher in the corridors of power. He was a close counselor to mayors, governors, athletes, celebrities and dealmakers of every stripe — especially when they got into trouble. A media magician, he steered larger-than-life figures such as George Steinbrenner, Leona Helmsley, Donald Trump and Kathie Lee Gifford through heavily publicized legal and social traumas, usually allowing them to come through their ordeals unscathed.
New York Yankees President Randy Levine and the Steinbrenner family said in a statement, “Howard was a trusted friend and confidant to George Steinbrenner and his family for more than four decades. His contributions to the Yankees took many forms over the years and his positive effect on our franchise cannot be understated.”
Clients counted on Rubenstein to make the impossible happen. He helped forge the alliance of politicians, Wall Street moguls and labor-union leaders that famously saved the city from bankruptcy in the 1970s.
He was even instrumental in creating the “new” Times Square. Representing the proposed project’s original developer, Rubenstein saw that it was in trouble because politicians and the public hated the real-estate man’s designs, which looked dark and stark with none of Times Square’s historic glitter.
“So I told him, ‘ Go put some lights on the buildings,’ ” Howard related to me over a long, boozy dinner. Quickly revised plans resembled the bright old Coney Island. Critics raved. And although other developers later took over, their new, cheerfully lit towers looked just like the ones Howard had envisioned.
Soft-spoken, polite and impeccably dressed in a suit and tie, Rubenstein wore the mantle of power lightly. He spun a magic web of miracles from his gracious Fifth Avenue apartment, to beloved wife Amy Forman’s Peter Luger restaurant, and to boardrooms in between.
He was nothing like vicious and ruthless spin doctors of legend. Rubenstein loved the city, the press and his work. He had a rare wit about the way he juggled them.
When large glass shards fell from a client’s building in the 1980s, The Post trumpeted the story on Page 1 of its first edition, which was delivered out of town. Rubenstein thought it was overkill for an accident that harmed no one. He gently complained to the then-editor, who yanked the story from subsequent editions.
A few days later, a reporter for another paper told Rubenstein he was following up a tip that glass had fallen from a Midtown high-rise. Howard messengered a copy of the Post’s little-seen early edition with a note, “Are you kidding? This is an old story.”
Rubenstein was a close friend of The Post and its parent, News Corporation. We were fortunate to have him in our camp in 1988 when owner Rupert Murdoch needed to sell the paper due to a government directive, but there were no buyers in sight.
The Post needed all the public’s help it could get. Reminded that Post founder Alexander Hamilton lay buried in the Trinity Church graveyard, Rubenstein came up with the idea of a candlelight march to our office a few blocks away. “I’ll get the unions to do it,” he said as if it was the easiest thing in the world. It never happened, only because another Rubenstein client, real-estate king Peter Kalikow, came along just in time to rescue the paper.
Rubenstein is survived by Forman, sons Steven and Richard and daughter Roni.
Steven said, “He loved New York, our family and what he did for the city. In his last days, he said, ‘I only wish I could do it again.’ ”