Robert De Niro Faces Unprecedented Backlash: A Deep Dive into the Actor’s Controversial Actions

In the early 2020s, Robert De Niro became romantically involved with martial arts instructor Tiffany Chen. They met years earlier when Chen played a Tai Chi instructor in De Niro’s 2015 comedy film, “The Intern,” but it’s unclear exactly what led to the shift into romance. 

While the couple has seemed very happy, some people took issue with the relationship’s major age gap. De Niro is around 35 to 36 years older than his partner. When they first started dating, he was about 78 years old compared to Chen’s 42. At the 2024 Oscars, host Jimmy Kimmel took a jab at De Niro’s relationship with Chen. He joked about how Jodie Foster was “young enough” to play De Niro’s daughter when she acted opposite him in “Taxi Driver” at the age of 12; in 2024, though, when Foster was in her early 60s, Kimmel said, “Now, she’s 20 years too old to be his girlfriend.” Foster, De Niro, and Chen all seemed to take the joke well, but it highlighted how much of a commonplace topic the age gap was.

For many fans, the age gap only really became an issue when De Niro welcomed his daughter Gia in early 2023, when De Niro was 79. Some fans on Reddit called the move “irresponsible” and “egotistical,” while another claimed, “Kid will probably grow up only remembering his father’s face from movies.”

Soon after Robert De Niro and Tiffany Chen’s daughter, Gia, was born, the actor opened up about raising a baby again so many years after his last child was born. Unfortunately, in early 2025, De Niro admitted something about his parenting style in an interview that really rubbed fans the wrong way. 

De Niro sat down with The Guardian for a conversation about a variety of topics, including how he has parented his new daughter — or hasn’t. He said of raising a child, “It doesn’t get easier … I mean, I don’t do the heavy lifting. I’m there, I support my girlfriend. But she does the work. And we have help, which is so important.”

As you might expect, fans were a little disappointed to hear De Niro openly admit that he doesn’t help that much with parenting compared to the woman in the relationship. People debated the situation on social media, with one person on Reddit joking, “Boy math is having endless kids and doing zero parenting.” Another called the situation “embarrassing.” Then again, a few fans appreciated De Niro’s upfront take, like someone who commented, “The honesty is cracking me up. I think it’s reasonable to guess his girlfriend knew what she was getting into in this situation.” 

De Niro has seven children, including Gia, and they have a massive age gap between them. The oldest is a daughter named Drena, who was born in 1967, more than 55 years before Gia was born. His second-youngest child is his daughter Helen, who turned 14 in December 2025. He also has a few grandchildren.

Throughout his long career, Robert De Niro has mostly been able to stay out of any legal trouble. However, in 2019, a former employee of his production company, Canal Productions, named Graham Chase Robinsony, sued him and the company, alleging gender discrimination and retaliation. This came not long after De Niro and his company first sued her with accusations of inappropriate spending and stealing airline miles, among other things.

Robinson’s case went to trial in 2023, and De Niro testified. In the end, De Niro was not found personally liable, but his production company was. Canal Productions was ordered to pay Robinson $1.26 million. Robinson was also cleared of all accusations from De Niro’s lawsuit against her.

In her lawsuit, Robinson alleged that De Niro treated her, his executive assistant at the time, as his “office wife,” making her do stereotypically female-aligned tasks. Her lawyer claimed that this wouldn’t have happened if she were a man, according to Courthouse News Service. There were other related allegations as well, including a claim of wage difference from another employee because of her gender. These and other allegations from Robinson in the court case left a bad taste in fans’ mouths.

Robert De Niro continued to act quite a bit despite his advancing age, even in his 80s, but he’s also dedicated plenty of time to speaking out about his political beliefs and criticizing Donald Trump. For some fans, this might be a green flag; to others, it made them lose respect for De Niro.

De Niro was very outspoken after Trump became the 45th president of the United States, but the actor got even louder when he became president again. During a February 2026 appearance on the podcast “The Best People With Nicole Wallace,” the Oscar winner declared, “The story is our country, and Trump is destroying it, and who knows what his reasons are, but it’s sick … We have to save the country.” He then called Trump the “enemy of this country.”

Many fans of De Niro support his views, but there has also been some backlash to his intense statements. In 2024, De Niro’s anti-Trump comments led the National Association of Broadcasters to rescind the Leadership Foundation’s Service to America Award, which it planned to give the actor. As for regular fans, one person claimed on Reddit that “his latest rants and antics just make him look like a complete fool” and said De Niro’s actions “shattered his legacy.” That’s hardly a great thing to hear for any actor. Other opinions have been split, with one person echoing many others when they wrote on Reddit, “I don’t understand why anyone cares what celebrities think,” while another pointed out that Trump is a celebrity himself.