Robert De Niro’s Daughter Airyn De Niro Opens Up About Her Transition Journey

Please give a warm welcome to Airyn De Niro. In a story for Them, Robert De Niro‘s 29 year-old daughter Airyn has introduced herself to the public as a trans woman—opening up about her childhood, her aspirations, and how she has navigated her transition journey.

Born in 1995, Airyn De Niro is one of the legendary actor’s seven children. The Raging Bull star shares two kids with his first wife, actress Diahnne Abbott: Drena De Niro, 57, Abbott’s daughter from a previous marriage whom De Niro adopted; and Raphael De Niro, 48. Abbott and De Niro divorced in 1988. De Niro then had twins Airyn and Julian De Niro, 29, with actress and model Toukie Smith; he and Smith were in a relationship with from 1988 to 1996. In 1997, De Niro married actress Grace Hightower, and together they had Elliot De Niro, 27, and Helen Grace De Niro, 13. De Niro and Hightower divorced in 2018. In May of 2023, the 81-year-old actor welcomed his seventh child, Gia Vivian-Chen De Niro, with his girlfriend, 45-year old Vivian Chen.

Airyn De Niro spent her childhood mostly out of the spotlight, despite the massive success of her two-time Oscar winning father. “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 told Them. “They have told me they wanted me to have as much of a normal childhood as possible.”

But on March 19 of this year, De Niro’s privacy was interrupted when the The Daily Mail posted paparazzi pictures of her as she went to visit her father at the Greenwich Hotel. In the accompanying article, Airyn was simultaneously misgendered and outed as a trans woman, described as a “barely recognizable” “nepo baby” undergoing a “shocking transformation.”

“I actually didn’t find out about the Daily Mail thing until like a week after it was posted,” De Niro told Them. “Not only did they get information wrong about me… They just sort of reminded me that people really don’t know anything about me.”

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Here are a few things you should know about Airyn: She’s an aspiring model and voice actor who’s also studying to be a mental health counselor. She also wants to achieve success on her own. “I wasn’t brought up having a side part in one of dad’s movies or going to business meetings or attending premieres,” she told Them. “My dad was very big on us finding our own sort of path. I would want [success] to happen on my own merit.” De Niro revealed that she auditioned for the role of Jules in Euphoria, which ultimately went to Hunter Schafer, as well as a character in the video game League of Legends. Her twin, Julian, is also an actor who recently played a young Barack Obama in The First Lady, and appeared on Broadway in a recent revival of The Sign in Sidney Brustein‘s Window.

As a child, De Niro said, she felt out of place as a “bigger bodied person,” which was difficult for her to process. “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,” she said. She also opened up to Them about other issues she faced growing up as a femme, biracial queer person. “[Gay men were] ruthless and mean. I didn’t even fit that beauty standard, which is thin, white, muscular, or just super fit, masculine,” she told Them. “I was always told I was too much of something or not enough of something growing up: Too big, not skinny enough. Not Black enough, not white enough. Too feminine, not masculine enough. It was never just, ‘You’re just right, just the way you are.’”

In November of last year, De Niro began hormone therapy. “Who wants to be an old man?” she joked to Them. De Niro began transitioning, in part, after seeing the rising success and visibility of 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 said. “Maybe I can start.” Her transition was also influenced by the Black women in her life, like her mother. “I think stepping into this new identity, while also being more proud of my Blackness, makes me feel closer to them in some way,” she said

As a biracial trans woman, De Niro wants “queer people of color and bigger-bodied people to have an Alex Consani,” she told Them, referencing the influential transgender model. “I want queer people of color and bigger-bodied people to have a Hunter Schafer.” And while she doesn’t want her famous last name to book her any roles, she does dream of one day sharing the spotlight with a family member. “A part of me has always wanted to model and sort of follow my mom’s footsteps,” she said. “Honestly, if I could be on the cover of Vogue with her or recreating one of her pictures, that would be a dream come true.”