Shortly after his daughter, Airyn De Niro, came out as transgender, Robert De Niro publicly expressed his love and support for her.
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In a statement to Deadline, the acting icon spoke out about the news. “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…”
He then added, “I love all my children.”
While speaking to Them, Airyn spoke about being one of the actor’s seven children. Her mother is actress Tourkie Smith, and she has a twin brother named Julian.
“There’s a difference between being visible and being seen,” she explained. “I’ve been visible. I don’t think I’ve been seen yet.”
She then said that no parent is “perfect,” but she is grateful that both of her parents kept her out of the limelight. “They have told me they wanted me to have as much of a normal childhood as possible.”
Robert De Niro’s Daughter Spoke About How She Stood out From Other Family Members
Meanwhile, Airyn reflected on how she stood out from the rest of her family while growing up.
“I always grew up a bigger-bodied person,” she explained. “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.”
Airyn also pointed out that she didn’t grow up like her peers did, which caused her to be taunted.
“Growing up, when people started hitting puberty and started liking each other… I never had that,” she said. “I never had a boyfriend at a young age, even though looking back, do we really need to be dating in middle school?”
She then said, “I was like, ‘Wow, these things signify I’m very unwanted. I’m not desirable. I’m not attractive like the other people, the other girls, the other boys.'”
When she came out as a gay man, Airyn said other gay men were ruthless and mean to her as well. “I didn’t even fit that beauty standard,” she said. “Which is thin, white, muscular, or just super fit. 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,” she added.