Hilaria Baldwin treats step-daughter Ireland Baldwin as a friend

6 March 2020

Hilaria Baldwin treats her step-daughter Ireland Baldwin like one of her "girlfriends".

Hilaria Baldwin and Ireland Baldwin

The 36-year-old beauty became stepmother to 24-year-old Ireland when she married the model's father Alec Baldwin - who has Ireland with his first wife Kim Basinger - in 2012.

And Hilaria has said she gets on so well with Ireland because she doesn't treat her as a daughter, and instead just tries to be there for her as a friend.

The health and wellness expert said: "I have been so lucky to have an amazing dynamic with [Ireland]. I never tried to be her mom. I think that's really important. First of all, I'm 11 years older than her. I met her when she was 15 years old. And we are just like girlfriends. Sometimes she calls me for advice. Sometimes I call her for advice. And so we've never had one bad moment our entire relationship."

Although Hilaria doesn't try to be a mother to Ireland, she always makes sure the model and actress doesn't feel like the odd one out amongst her half-siblings.

The 'Mom Brain' podcast host - who has Carmen, six, Rafael, four, Leonardo, three, and Romeo, 21 months, with Alec - told Us Weekly magazine: "I think it's a lot of me respecting boundaries. Then also having her know and, I say it to her all the time, that she's just as important as my kids that I birthed. I think that's very important as she went from being an only child for a really long time to all of a sudden having one of five."

Meanwhile, Hilaria previously spoke of her bond with Ireland in an Instagram post last year, where she insisted she would never try and replace Kim Basinger as Ireland's mother.

She wrote at the time: "She has a good mother who I have tremendous respect for, and I put myself in Kim's shoes: if my children ever had a stepmother, I'd want her to let me be number one. As someone who loves [Ireland], my job was not to step in and take over but rather respect what had been for the first 15 years of her life and then become a part of that, in a way that works for everyone."