Robert De Niro, 79, talks baby number eight just weeks after welcoming seventh child
Robert De Niro surprised everyone in May when he casually announced that he had welcomed his seventh child, his first with his girlfriend, Tiffany Chen.
The 79-year-old and Tiffany welcomed a little girl, Gia Virginia Chen De Niro, on April 6 and he feels so reinvigorated after becoming a dad again, he's tempted to add even more children to his growing family.
Speaking to Extra ahead of the Tribeca Film Festival about how fatherhood has reenergized him, De Niro joked: "I'm going to have a new one every year."
The veteran actor also stopped by Today on Thursday to discuss his new movie, About My Father, and couldn't help but gush about life with his newborn. "It feels great, yeah," he told co-anchor Hoda Kotb before explaining how his parenting has evolved over the years.
"I have certain awareness — when you're older you have awareness of certain things in life, dynamics, everything, family dynamics." He continued: "You can't avoid learning certain things and how you can deal with those and manage them and this and that, the usual. It's amazing, but I'm very happy about it."
De Niro revealed the birth of Gia during an interview with ET Canada earlier last month. While discussing fatherhood as it relates to his new movie, a father-son adventure co-starring Sebastian Maniscalco, the actor confirmed he had recently become a father of seven.
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When asked about his six kids, De Niro corrected the interviewer and said: "Seven, actually," adding: "I just had a baby," though he didn't elaborate any further at the time.
His other six children are Drena, Raphael, Julian, Aaron, Elliot, and Helen Grace, which he shares with three different women. Drena, 51, and Raphael, 46, he shares with his first wife, Diahnne Abbott, 78, who he married in 1976 and officially divorced in 1988.
Drena is Diahnne's daughter from a previous relationship, though De Niro adopted her, and she took his last name when he married Diahnne. Raphael is his first biological child and oldest son.
He welcomed twin sons Julian and Aaron, 27, with his former girlfriend, model, and actress Toukie Smith, 70, who he was with from 1985 until 1992. His second wife was Grace Hightower, 68; they were married from 1997 until 2018, and they share Elliot, 24, and Helen Grace, 11. They briefly separated between the births of their two kids.
De Niro also has four grandkids, three from his son Raphael, who is a real estate broker, and one from his daughter Drena, also an actress and filmmaker.
Further discussing his approach to parenting his children with ET, despite some of his already being adults with kids of their own, he said: "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. 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."
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