Andy Cohen Spoke With Hilaria Baldwin About ‘Real Housewives’
Andy Cohen and Kelly Ripa must have been reading the tea leaves when the friends and TV hosts sat down for a chat on Ripa’s SiriusXM show.
The Bravo host of Watch What Happens Live recently visited Let’s Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa and when the topic of Alec and Hilaria Baldwin came up, Cohen revealed that he once spoke with Hilaria about joining the Real Housewives franchise, of which he is an executive producer. But, he says their talks didn’t get too far.
“I would say it was an exploratory conversation and it didn’t go much further, but it is certainly an interesting idea,” said Cohen of the New York resident, indicating it was for RHONY. “We did speak to her a couple years ago.” (Bravo rebooted RHONY in 2023 with a new cast.)
Though the episode released on Wednesday, the conversation was recorded prior to TLC announcing that they had booked the Baldwin family for a new reality series.
When Ripa asked Cohen if he had ever thought about giving the Baldwins the Kardashian treatment at Bravo, Cohen put the brakes on the idea due to Baldwin.
“Not a bad idea [but] I wonder how Alec would feel about surrendering control of his portrayal to someone else,” he said. When Ripa said she was interested in the “funny” concept of seeing him with all of his young children, Cohen admitted, “I think that’s a good, I think that’s, Keeping Up With the Baldwins. Keeping Up With the Baldwinitos.”
But, the Bravo multihyphenate (and recent The Hollywood Reporter cover star) concluded: “Do I not have enough on my plate with the zillions of Housewives? Do I need the late night calls from Alec and Hilaria about everything? I don’t know.”
On Tuesday, TLC announced The Baldwins (working title) reality series, which will feature Alec and Hilaria and their brood of seven children. “We’re inviting you into our home, to experience the ups and downs, the good and the bad, the wild and the crazy,” Alec said on Instagram, with his wife of 12 years at his side amid a cacophony of happy children at play.
Baldwin had told Ripa on her podcast in November 2023 that he was pitching a family reality series so that he could work from home. “I’m desperate to try to work from New York,” he had said.
The TLC show is due for release in 2025.
However, Baldwin is set for trial in July stemming from manslaughter charges over the accidental shooting death of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. If convicted, Baldwin faces 18 months in prison, a possible sentence that would impact a shooting schedule for The Baldwins.
In April, a judge sentenced Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed to 18 months in prison for involuntary manslaughter.
