Robert De Niro has spent decades building one of Hollywood’s most celebrated careers, but even after raising seven children, he says fatherhood still does not come with a simple formula. At 83, the two-time Oscar winner admits that balancing work and family can still leave a parent wondering whether they were present enough.
According to People, the actor reflected on those feelings while promoting his new Netflix thriller, The Whisper Man, which explores strained relationships between fathers and sons. For Robert De Niro, the subject hits especially close to home. His children range in age from 3 to 54, giving him a perspective on parenting that stretches across several generations.
Robert De Niro Says Parenting Still Comes With Guilt
Asked whether he had discovered a secret to balancing fatherhood with a demanding career, De Niro said there really wasn’t one. Instead, parents simply have to manage everything as best they can, even when work means missing moments they wish they had been there for. He also described becoming a parent as something people cannot fully prepare for beforehand. Courses and advice may help, but eventually, he said, you simply have a child and learn by doing. His Whisper Man costar Adam Scott agreed, saying no amount of outside advice can completely prepare someone for the reality of raising children.
That theme runs through their new movie. Scott plays a widowed crime writer whose 8-year-old son disappears, forcing him to turn to his estranged father, played by De Niro, for help. Their search connects them to an old serial-killer case and puts a complicated father-son relationship at the center of the thriller.
His Seven Children Span More Than Five Decades
Robert De Niro first became a father decades ago. He adopted daughter Drena after marrying actress Diahnne Abbott, and the couple later welcomed son Raphael. After their divorce, he had twins Julian and Airyn with actress Toukie Smith. De Niro later married Grace Hightower, with whom he shares son Elliot and daughter Helen. In 2023, he welcomed his seventh child, daughter Gia, with girlfriend Tiffany Chen. Gia is now 3, meaning De Niro continues to experience the earliest stages of parenthood even as several of his older children have long since reached adulthood.
That wide age range gives his comments added weight. De Niro has raised children across very different stages of his life, yet he does not pretend experience has made parenting easy. Even after seven children and decades of fatherhood, he still understands the familiar question many parents carry: Did I do enough, and was I there when it mattered?