This article was originally published on eXXLMag
For a guy who's made a living baring his soul on camera, Robert De Niro is unusually private. Though he's been working for 58 years, he rarely divulges any information about himself offscreen. So it was a jaw-dropping surprise when, during an interview with ET Canada in May 2023, the actor suddenly revealed that he had just had another baby — at the age of 79. That brings the number of De Niro children up to seven. But believe it or not, this is hardly the most shocking thing about the Oscar winner's life.
Seven kids — and counting?
De Niro was promoting his forthcoming movie About My Father when he revealed that he'd had a seventh child. This was a shock to his fans, who only knew of his previous six kids.
These include Drena, 51, Raphael, 46 — from his first wife, Diahnne Abbott — Elliot, 25, Helen, 11 — from his second wife, Grace Hightower — and twins Aaron and Julian, 27, from Toukie Smith. The seventh baby is called Gia Virginia Chen-De Niro and was born on April 6, 2023.
A New York artist
Born in 1943 in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, De Niro had creative roots from the start. His parents — mother Virginia Admiral and father Robert De Niro Sr. — had met in a painting class.
His father was well-known as an abstract expressionist whose friends included Tennessee Williams, Henry Miller, and Anaïs Nin. But De Niro Sr. left his wife and kids after coming out as gay when De Niro Jr. was still only two.
Not as Italian as you might think
Despite his very Italian-sounding name, De Niro doesn't solely hail from Italy. In fact, he's a complicated mix.
“I have Irish roots. My mother’s Dutch, French, and German. And my father was Irish and Italian,” he told the Irish Sun in 2019. “I hitchhiked around Ireland when I was about 18, 19. I’ve been trying for years to find relatives there. For some reason, it’s not easy. Italy was easier.”
Religion? Meh...
De Niro was raised by an atheist mother and a formerly Catholic father. Neither parent wanted their son to be baptized, but young De Niro's grandparents had the ceremony performed secretly while he was staying with them.
Still, De Niro said at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2011 that he stopped going to church at 15 years old. “I respect religion,” he said, “but if there’s a God, he’s got a lot of explaining to do!”
A working-class background
Talking to Parade magazine in November 2009, De Niro said of his family background, “My father’s side was working-class, lower middle-class. My mother’s side didn’t have much money.
They were kind of academic. My grandfather was a working man. He worked for the health department.” But from all accounts, De Niro enjoyed his childhood.
He's always been a good observer
Talking to Parade in 2019, De Niro said of his childhood in the 1950s and 1960s, “It was an exciting time to grow up. Kind of bohemian.
Things were happening. There were big changes.” He went on, “I wasn’t really a part of it, though. I was more on the outside. But by virtue of being an actor, I was a good observer of it.”
Acting was his only choice
In fact, he simply “didn’t have a Plan B” he told Parade. “I never quite got to the point of needing one.
I did one thing, then the next. I was able to sustain myself,” he said. Surprisingly, De Niro was just over 30 when he hit the big time, and he was glad about that. “I had some regular life behind me,” he explained.
His parents knew what was good for him
De Niro Sr. and Admiral were always supportive of their son’s chosen path.
In 2019, speaking to Architectural Digest, De Niro said his folks “were the kind of parents who weren’t going to oppose my wanting to be an actor.” In fact, he considered that his parents had an unconscious influence, even, on the performer he became.
Baby steps
De Niro got into acting at age 10 when he played the Cowardly Lion in a local performance of The Wizard of Oz. He's said this gave him a means to express himself — but he didn't strictly follow the artist's path.
He also joined a street gang in Kenmare in New York. His gang name was Bobby Milk because, according to Vanity Fair, “he was pale and strange as milk.”
Coming out of his shell
The acting world is competitive, of course, and De Niro initially hoped acting would be a way to get over his natural shyness. He was accepted to New York's LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts but dropped out shortly afterward.
He quit permanently at 16 to pursue acting his own way.
Growing Into the role
Before he was an acting legend known around the world, De Niro auditioned for The Godfather and read for four roles: Sonny Corleone, Michael Corleone, Paulie Gatto, and Carlo Rizzi.
He didn't land them, but Francis Ford Coppola was so impressed that he remembered the young actor and called him up for The Godfather: Part II.
The Don of the Oscars
De Niro won his first Oscar for portraying the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part II. And as Marlon Brando had already won an Oscar for playing the older, wiser version of Vito Corleone in The Godfather, De Niro's made a very niche kind of history.
De Niro and Brando became the first actors to win an Oscar for portraying the same character.
Getting into it
Look up "method actor" in the dictionary, and this guy should appear there. His acting process became legendary in the first half of his career.
He became a real taxi driver for his role in (you guessed it) Taxi Driver, for instance, and once paid a dentist $5,000 to mess up his teeth for Cape Fear. He then dropped another $20,000 to fix them afterward!
He put his body on the line for his biggest role
He also isn't afraid to change shape. For Raging Bull, De Niro packed on so much muscle — 60 pounds — that he held a Guinness World Record for most weight gained for a movie.
Not realizing his increased strength, he broke Joe Pesci's ribs during one of their fight scenes.
Edgy techniques that sometimes crossed the line
De Niro pushed buttons to get good reactions out of fellow actors, too. Once, for a scene with Jerry Lewis where Lewis needed to be livid, he made several anti-Semitic comments to the other actor.
"I forgot the cameras were there," Lewis later said. "I was going for Bobby’s throat.”
Deep emotions onscreen
All his performances are inspired, of course, but for his role in Silver Linings Playbook, De Niro didn't have to dig too deep. Though he didn't explain exactly why, he once famously wept in an interview when discussing director David O.
Russell's personal connection with the film's bipolar main character. "I know exactly what [Russell] goes through," he said.
Giving back
Over his many years and his many roles, De Niro collected tons of mementos including costumes, props, and scripts. In 2006 he gave back to the acting community by donating all of it to the Harry Ransom Center at UT Austin.
The public and film historians can go check out what the center called a collection "unlike any other film archive."
Legendary privacy
De Niro's interviews are usually solely for the purposes of publicity, and they usually don't reveal much. “He is simply not show business,” Charles Maryan, a director friend, told Vanity Fair.
“People who don’t know him think he’s somewhere else, but he is very much there — soaking up new characters, new situations. He is always watching, observing.”
Voting viewpoint
Although he dislikes being asked in the press about his political stance, De Niro is a proud Democrat and has supported all the blue presidential candidates since at least 2000. Controversially, he also lobbied Congress against impeaching Bill Clinton.
He's worn his politics on his sleeve for decades now — even going so far as to ban Donald Trump from his restaurant.
Caring about kids
At the 1981 Oscars, a fan handed De Niro a green ribbon to memorialize several children who'd been victims of a serial killer in Georgia.
De Niro immediately pinned the ribbon to his lapel, and when he gave his Best Actor speech later that night, the ribbon got major screen time — spreading awareness to everyone watching.
Community investment
When he's not acting, De Niro is active in the NYC business world. He co-owns famed upscale restaurants Nobu and Layla and co-founded the Tribeca Film Festival in 2001 as a way to bring vibrance back to Lower Manhattan after 9/11.
He also owns the Tribeca Grill and is part of a company planning to create a luxury resort in Barbuda.
He got into brief trouble over vaccines
De Niro revealed in 2016 that his son Elliot has autism and called for research into all of its possible causes. In the same year, the documentary Vaxxed created controversy after it was initially scheduled to screen at the Tribeca Film Festival.
“My intent in screening this film was to provide an opportunity for conversation around an issue that is deeply personal to me and my family,” De Niro said in a statement. “But... we do not believe it contributes to or furthers the discussion I had hoped for.”
A real-life survivor
He's a tough guy, but De Niro hasn't been without his own health battles. After being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2003, he was treated through surgery at New York's famed MSK Cancer Center and hasn't relapsed since.
“The condition was detected at an early stage because of regular check-ups, a result of his proactive personal healthcare program,” his publicist said.
Laying down the law
Other battles that De Niro has faced include his company Canal Productions suing one of its former employees in 2019 for $6 million. Why?
Allegedly, she'd breached her contract and spent her workdays binging Friends on Netflix. The ex-employee, Graham Chase Robinson, counter-sued for $12 million for gender discrimination and harassment. The court case in ongoing. But that wasn't the only personal difficulty he's had on his mind.
He has some pretty special awards
To this day De Niro Jr. is a massively celebrated and popular actor.
And it’s not difficult to understand why. Indeed, he has two Oscars, a Golden Globe, and an AFI Life Achievement Award under his belt. Oh, and let’s not forget the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which he received in 2016. Among his most famous films are The Godfather Part II, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and Taxi Driver.
He dedicated one special film to his father
After De Niro Sr. passed away in 1993, De Niro Jr. dedicated his new film A Bronx Tale to him.
Touchingly, it was the first film he had ever directed, so it had special significance. Talking to Interview magazine that year, he said, “I thought it would be a nice thing to do — and the movie’s about fathers and sons.”
His father took him to the movies
Speaking to Interview, De Niro shared some rare tidbits about his parents. For his father had often been “struggling, I guess, for want of a better word,” with his artist’s lifestyle.
But he would take his son out to the movies sometimes. “I liked things [films] like A Taste of Honey and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning,” De Niro said.
He made a movie about his father
In 2014 De Niro collaborated on a documentary film about his father, Remembering the Artist: Robert De Niro, Sr.
When asked on The Today Show why he had done the HBO premiere, the actor answered, “Because I owed it to him and all the family, because of the great work that he had done.”
He wanted to pass a legacy on to his family
After completing the documentary about his father, De Niro told Flatt magazine, “I wanted my younger kids — who were born after he died — to know what their grandfather did. I even kept his painting studio intact so they could see it.
I’ve kept my father’s studio for 20 years — since he passed away. I’ve kept it just about the way it was.”
He has an LGBTQ+ advocate
These days, De Niro Jr. speaks determinedly about LGBTQ+ rights and the scourge of white nationalism in the United States.
In January 2019, after being sent a pipe bomb because of his political views, he told The Guardian, “Yeah, I worry, and one of my kids is gay, and he worries about being treated a certain way. We talk about it.” Sadly, that is in contrast to the conversations he didn’t have with his own father.
His father was proud of him
In his own journals, the elder De Niro did speak of his pride in his son. In one entry, he wrote of De Niro Jr., “He is tanned from a sunlamp – for his new movie part – and looks much better than when he returned from Italy two weeks ago.
I wanted to run my fingers through his hair and to kiss him, but I hardly think that he would have appreciated it.”
Like, really proud
Above all else, De Niro Jr. remembers how much his father loved him.
As he went on to explain to The Observer, “It wasn’t like we sat down and he told me, ‘I like this movie’… But I know he was proud.” And that was perhaps best illustrated in another passage from his father’s personal diaries. For you see, he wrote in one that De Niro Jr. was “getting all sorts of movie and stage offers” at the time, and “My little baby-doll has grown up.”
He doesn't think he's a cool dad
ET Canada asked De Niro what kind of father he was in May 2023. “I’m okay,” he answered.
“You know, my kids disagree with me at times, and they’re respectful. My daughter, she’s 11, she gives me grief sometimes and I argue with her. I adore her, but, you know. And my youngest now, that’ll be more to come. But, that’s what it is.”
He can sometimes put his foot down with his kids
De Niro was pretty philosophical about his parenting style when talking to ET Canada. He said he believes “in being loving with [his] kids,” even though he occasionally has “to be stern about stuff.”
“I mean, there’s no way around it with kids. I don’t like to have to lay down the law and stuff like that. But, [sometimes] you just have no choice,” he said. “And any parent, I think, would say the same thing. You always want to do the right thing by the children and give them the benefit of the doubt but sometimes you can’t.”