What I don't get is that she seems quite nice? And also quite sane, outside of the Spanish bullshit.
With other liars like Jameela and Jack Monroe, they are clearly unhinged, have a nasty streak, and compulsively lie about a huge variety of things. Whereas Hilaria is nice and only seems to lie about the one thing, or rather, all her lies are on the same theme.
There's something about this I'm just not getting. My best theory so far is that she wanted to be Spanish to get Alec's attention, and to make herself stand out in a crowd. When she first met Alec, she wasn't famous, and she got away with it. She didn't think ahead that she would have to continue this facade with much more intense media attention in the future. But as she got more famous, not only did she continue to get away with it, but it became her brand, and she benefited from it. By this point, she had dug herself into a hole she couldn't get out of. But she relaxed anyway, because it had been so long, and the media still weren't calling her out.
I'm horrified to hear about comparing her orange "darker" skin with her children's white skin, and talking about racism. That shows that she is in fact involving her kids in the delusions, and confusing them with false backstories about their own family, and offensive lessons about non-existent racism. This makes me doubt my theory, and I wonder if she's actually a high-functioning mentally ill person, without the nasty narc streak that most fantasists have.