Robert De Niro has been raising kids for almost his entire life…and he’s not finished.
While sitting down with ET Canada on Monday to talk about his newest film About My Father, the Taxi Driver star revealed that he recently welcomed another child into his family.
The revelation came up organically as ET’s Brittnee Blair was discussing De Niro’s experience as a dad relating to his fatherly role in his most recent movie in which he stars as the patriarch alongside Sebastian Maniscalco’s.
De Niro said that he believes in “being in love with [his] kids” even though he has to be “stern” sometimes.
“I mean, there’s no way around it with kids,” he explained. “I don’t like to have to lay down the law and stuff like that. But, [sometimes] you just have no choice. 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.”
As the conversation progressed, Blair brought up his “six kids”, to which he corrected her, saying, “Seven actually. I just had a baby.”
De Niro has six kids – Drena, 51, Raphael, 46, twins Julian and Aaron, 27, Elliot, 24, and daughter Helen Grace, 11 – all of whom he shares with three women, his ex-wives Grace Hightower and Diahnne Abbott, and his ex-girlfriend Toukie Smith.
The mother of his seventh child has yet to be confirmed, however, he has been rumored to have a romantic relationship with Tiffany Chen for several years, and was even recently spotted with Chen in Santa Monica where it appeared she was hiding a baby bump.
Having been a father for more than half his life, De Niro still doesn’t think of himself as a “cool dad”.
“I’m okay,” the Goodfellas alum admitted. “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,” he added, “that’ll be more to come. But, that’s what it is.”
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