When Gia came to the world, her older sister had already grown up for many years. But in the family of Robert De Niro there was an even more unusual generational plot: the newborn was already aunt.
Gia Virginia Chen-De Niro was born on April 6, 2023.
His father, Robert De Niro, was 79.
For the actor it meant to start again: a newborn in the family, the first games, the first words and those small daily moments that belong to the first years of a child's life.
Yet De Niro was a father for over half a century.
In fact, the history of his family goes through generations far away.
Drena, the eldest daughter, is a biological daughter of Diahnne Abbott. De Niro adopted it after the wedding with his mother and since then Drena has the actor's surname.
When Gia was born, Drena was already adult for many years.
This means that two daughters of the same father belong, in fact, to two completely different epochs of his life.
But the peculiarity does not end here.
Drena had already become the mother of Leandro De Niro Rodriguez, born in 2003. As a result, when Gia came to the world, he already had a 19-year-old niece and was already aunt.
It is one of those family structures where traditional distances between generations almost overlap: De Niro was at the same time the father of adult children and the father of a newborn child.
The actor didn't hide how much this new paternity involved him.
Speaking of Gia, he got excited and described it as a great joy. She told that, when she looks at her, for some time everything else disappears and can focus simply on her.
Meanwhile, even older children have welcomed the child within a family built over fifty years.
A few months after Gia's birth, De Niro turned 80.
An age in which many men observe growing adult children and perhaps their grandchildren. He, on the other hand, found himself again living the experiences related to childhood.
He didn't just become a father at 79.
He was living fatherhood at a completely different moment of his existence compared to the first time.
And this is perhaps the most surprising detail of his family history: his daughters belong to generations over half a century.
A single family, but generations that normally we would not expect to find between brothers and sisters.