For a long time, I thought of Hilaria Baldwin as my private obsession, emphasis on that last word. I must have first heard about her because she’s married to Alec Baldwin, but that’s not why she fascinated me (I like Alec Baldwin, but, c’mon, I don’t love him). No, this began five years ago, after my twins were born, because Hilaria is – or was – best known as a “mommy influencer”, as they say in the US, where she lives (and we’ll return to Hilaria’s relationship with geography shortly), with five young children and 900k Instagram followers. I would stare at the photos and videos she posted of herself in her lingerie – doing yoga, being pregnant, often both – looking as tiny and hardbodied as a nutcracker figurine, and I’d feel that almost comfortingly familiar wave of self-loathing. And then I’d look at her photos of her children in which she promoted clothing companies, or toys, or baby cream brands, and I’d think, “Well, at least I don’t use my kids to shill crap.” Self-loathing followed by self-vindication: it’s an irresistible combination, like sugar and salt, and Hilaria delivered it to me in its purest essence.

So yes, I became obsessed with her – I admit it. “Did you see that Hilaria posted a picture of herself in her lingerie to announce she was having a miscarriage?” I’d ask my friends. “Who?” they’d reply. Well, no one’s asking “who” any more, are they, Hilaria?

Over the Christmas break, an anonymous Twitter account suggested that Hilaria is not – contrary to what she has always implied – Spanish. Hilaria’s Spanish-ness was one of the few things I never questioned: she insisted her name was pronounced “Ee-LAIR-ia”; she and Alec had a Spanish-themed wedding, in which she clutched a flamenco fan; they gave their five kids Spanish names and referred to them as “the Baldwinitos”; she said on a recent podcast that she “moved [to the US] when I was 19 to go to NYU, from Mallorca”. Fine, she’s Spanish, whatever.

Or – whirls to camera! – maybe not. People who had grown up with her in Massachusetts piped up with their memories of the all-American Hillary Hayward-Thomas, as she was then. How strange that someone raised in the US would forget the word for cucumber, as Hilaria appeared to do on TV in 2015 (“How do you say in English?”). Despite her frequent references to her Spanish family, her parents, it turns out, are more American than mine, and the extent of their Spanishness is that they occasionally went on holiday to Mallorca, before retiring there when Hillary/Hilaria was 28. By that rubric, I’m French: please call me Hadlé.

This story scorched across the internet, which is partly down to the fact we’re all stuck at home and have exhausted Netflix, and partly to the vicarious thrill of watching women who boast about their perfect lives unspool before our eyes. Baldwin attempted to shut the story down, first by posting a video on – of course – her Instagram, in which she said, “I am a white girl… Europe has a lot of white people”, which sounds like something someone who had never lived in Europe would say.

I’m fascinated by people who give themselves public makeovers, when they know people around them have the receipts, like Rebel Wilson shaving several years off her age, or Frankie Boyle scolding his colleagues for gratuitous cruelty, when he used to make jokes about disabled children. Did Hilaria never worry about old friends popping up? What did her parents make of her Spanish accent, and did Alec know the truth or what? So many questions, so few reliable answers.

This is my final word on my specialist subject, Hilaria Baldwin, who is now everyone’s specialist subject. First, a lot of Americans give themselves dubious European roots. Seriously, have you ever been in New York on Saint Patrick’s Day? Has everyone forgotten Madonna’s English accent? We glam up our boring Americanness with some cosmopolitan European touches. Just take the compliment.

Hilaria’s misfortune was to be caught playing with her identity at a time when identity is such a controversial subject. Some have asked if she’s the new Rachel Dolezal, or maybe worse. After all Dolezal, in her deranged way, tried to further education about black history in her work as an academic and activist; all Hilaria did was hog space on Hola! covers and “Best-dressed Latina stars” lists.

Despite having spent the best part of five years being outraged by Hilaria Baldwin, I cannot be outraged about her almost endearing desire to be Spanish. I will die on this hill: her lingerie selfies and the way she uses her kids to advertise stuff are greater crimes than cos-playing Penélope Cruz. For this, of all things, to be the thing that brings her down – well, now I know how police chiefs felt when Al Capone was put away for tax evasion instead of for being a mobster. Enjoy your break from social media, Hilaria: I’ll miss the self-vindication you gave me, if not the self-loathing. And since you gave me so much, allow me, at last, to give you something in return: the word is “cucumber”.