Robert De Niro has been nothing but supportive since his daughter Airyn De Niro came out as trans.
“The support has still been nonstop from him, and I’m so grateful,” Airyn, 30, gushed in an interview with Them published on Thursday, October 30. “He was talking about how happy he was for me because I have an amazing boyfriend who he’s met, and [he said], ‘You have somebody who loves you for you, and you don’t need to change yourself for anybody.’”
Airyn also revealed that she and Robert, 82, recently discussed her transition in a therapy session.
“He said, ‘There’s no other thing to do than accept your kid for who they are and where they decide to go in life,’” she recalled. “He’s very good at being a dad and, not just that, [but also] accepting people from all walks of life.”
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Airyn joked that at her father’s “ripe old age, he’s not even setting a high bar. It’s just like, that should be the standard.”
Airyn publicly came out as trans in an interview with Them in April.
“I was always told I was too much of something or not enough of something growing up: Too big, not skinny enough,” she told the outlet of struggling to fit in with society’s standards. “Not Black enough, not white enough. Too feminine, not masculine enough. It was never just, ‘You’re just right, just the way you are.’”
Airyn said she found inspiration in the stories of openly trans women.
“Trans women being honest and open, especially [in] public spaces like social media and getting to see them in their success … I’m like, you know what? Maybe it’s not too late for me,” she continued.
Airyn also thanked her parents, Robert and actress Toukie Smith, for allowing her to grow up outside of the limelight.
“Obviously no parent is perfect, but I am grateful that both my parents agreed to keep me out of the limelight. They wanted it very private,” she said. “They have told me they wanted me to have as much of a normal childhood as possible.”
Airyn also touched on her experience with growing up feeling different than her family members.
“I always grew up a bigger-bodied person,” she recalled. “Everybody else in the family [was] relatively thin or fit; I was not, so I sort of stood out like a sore thumb and there wasn’t anybody in my family that could relate to that experience.”
Following the Them article, Robert expressed his support for Airyn in a statement at the time.
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“I loved and supported Aaron as my son, and now I love and support Airyn as my daughter. I don’t know what the big deal is. I love all my children,” he said.
Additionally, the Oscar winner told Entertainment Tonight in June, “As long as they’re not hurting themselves, doing anything that’s destructive or anything like that, you have to support them. Period.”
Robert and Smith, 73, share Airyn and her twin brother, Julian. The former couple dated from 1988 to 1996. The Intern star also shares kids Drena, 58, and Raphael, 48, with ex-wife Diahnne Abbott, Elliot, 27, and Helen, 13, with ex-wife Grace Hightower and Gia, 2, with girlfriend Tiffany Chen.
