Kennya Baldwin Biography

(Wife of Stephen Baldwin)

Born In: Brazil

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Kennya Baldwin is Brazilian graphics designer and wife of Hollywood actor Stephen Baldwin. Her father, Eumir Deodato, is a renowned Brazilian pianist, composer, record producer and arranger, who won the 1974 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance’ and is known as a Bossa Nova legend. Despite the Hollywood fame of her in-laws, she has led a life distanced from the media and steadily supported her husband in his endeavours. She was also instrumental in bringing him back to faith, which has changed the lives of both of them considerably as they became actively involved in the ministry as born-again Christians. While the family has faced financial woes multiple times, she is happily married to her husband for almost three decades and is the proud mother of emerging models Alaia and Hailey Baldwin.

Quick Facts

Also Known As: Kennya Baldwin Deodato, Kennya Deodato

Family:

Spouse/Ex-: Stephen Baldwin

father: Eumir Deodato

mother: Mary Ellen Deodata

children: Alaia Baldwin, Hailey Rhode Baldwin

Born Country: United States

Family Members American Female

More Facts

education: Parsons School of Design

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Born to a legendary Brazilian musician, Kennya Baldwin had experienced life in the limelight back in her home country. However, she enjoyed a quieter life after she moved to the US for her studies. After finishing college, she began working as an artist and graphics designer. According to her, art is more of a passion than a career. Her life took a dramatic turn after she met her future husband Stephen Baldwin for the first time on a subway in New York in 1987. She immediately fell in love with him and the two started dating.

Following their marriage, despite her celebrity status, she still managed to stay obscure for most of her life, and even hardly uses the social media accounts her daughters forced her to create. However, she has drawn attention to herself time and again, as according to her younger daughter Hailey, she was once approached by Academy Award winning actor, Leonardo DiCaprio, for a date at a London bar, to which she asked him to check with her husband first.

Continue Reading BelowPersonal Life

Kennya Baldwin was born as Kennya Deodato in Brazil, to Eumir Deodato and Mary Ellen Deodata. Her father, Eumir Deodato, is a Grammy Award winning Brazilian pianist, composer, record producer and arranger, who is known as a Bossa Nova legend for fusing jazz with varied elements of rock/pop, R&B, funk, Latin, classical and symphonic or orchestral music.

Kennya attended York Preparatory School in New York, where she was a student of the class of 1984. She later studied graphics design at Parsons School of Design. Her father divorced her mother in the early 2000s, and began dating another girl.

She fell in love with Stephen Baldwin in 1987, and the two got married three years later in 1990. Both of them are very romantic, and 27 years after their marriage, they still love each other as much as they did when they started dating. She gave birth to their first child, daughter Alaia, on January 24, 1993. Their second daughter, Hailey, was born on November 22, 1996. When her daughters were young, she homeschooled them as they needed to travel constantly for her husband’s job commitments. Her eldest daughter Alaia got married to her boyfriend Andrew Aronow in New York in September 2017.

Return to Faith

Kennya Baldwin has been responsible for her husband Stephen Baldwin’s return to faith. She is a devout Christian, but reportedly lapsed as a young adult, while her husband had experienced drug abuse when he was young. However, there is an interesting story behind how both of them renewed their faiths. After the birth of their first child, the couple had hired a Portuguese nanny, Augusta, who sang religious songs to the baby on a daily basis. When questioned about her faith, she reportedly told them that she had received prophetic word that she would work for the Baldwins and be instrumental in bringing them back to faith. While she was not convinced immediately, she began attending a Brazilian evangelical church in New York. She was the first to renew her faith and later convinced her husband as well. They both consider themselves born-again Christians. Now a rigidly conservative Christian, Stephen doesn’t allow his father-in-law to come to his house accompanied by his new girlfriend.

Controversies & Scandals

Kennya Baldwin’s husband has had run-ins with the law mainly for failing to pay mortgage or income tax. After he defaulted on nearly 1 million dollars in mid-2009, he and his wife both filed for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on July 21, 2009. As she co-owned all his property, they had to file for joint bankruptcy. They eventually lost their homes in Upper Grandview, New York and in the village of Nyack to foreclosure and reportedly moved into a house owned by Stephan’s brother, famous Hollywood actor Alec Baldwin.