Robert De Niro Shares Why He Feels ‘Guilty’ as Dad of Seven

At 83, Robert De Niro is still figuring out how to make it all work, and he's not pretending otherwise. From lingering guilt over missed moments to the fresh joy of raising a toddler, the screen legend opens up about what fatherhood has actually taught him.

Robert De Niro is reflecting on the challenges he's faced trying to balance his career with his personal life. The "Taxi Driver" star, who is a father to seven children from different relationships, got candid about this part of his life while promoting a new film.

De Niro is starring in the new Netflix movie "The Whisper Man" as the estranged father of Adam Scott's character, whose son is kidnapped.

Though the movie is a thriller centered on hunting down a serial killer, at its core it explores fatherhood and the effort of fathers doing their best — something the two-time Oscar winner knows firsthand.

"I don't know if there is a secret," he shared during a recent interview. "It's just managing it all. And there's no way around not feeling a little guilty about not being there at times you should or you think you should."

Scott, whose character grapples with becoming a newly single father after his wife's death, added that there's no guidebook to parenting — and even good advice only goes so far. (Scott shares teenage son Graham and daughter Frankie with his wife, Naomi Scott.)

"No matter how much advice you get or whatever anyone says to you, or tries to, once you're doing it, it's a brand new thing and there's no preparing for it," he said. "Really, you really have to experience it to figure out how you fit into being a parent. That's what I found anyway."

"It's a new experience. It's not like you've taken courses on it and stuff," De Niro added, recalling his first experience of fatherhood. "You can, of course, but you don't. You just jump in and you have the child and you got to... That's it."

De Niro's own family spans seven children across several relationships. He adopted his eldest daughter, Drena, 54, when he married his now ex-wife, Diahnne Abbott. The couple later welcomed son Raphael, 49.

Following his divorce from Abbott, De Niro dated actress Toukie Smith, with whom he had twins Julian and Airyn, 30. He married Grace Hightower in 1997, and the pair share son Elliot, 28, and daughter Helen, 14. His seventh child, daughter Gia, 3, arrived in 2023 — his first with girlfriend Tiffany Chen.

Starting a new chapter of fatherhood later in life has never troubled the "Goodfellas" star, who recently turned 83. "It feels great," De Niro told AARP in 2023 after Gia's birth. "Everything that I'm consumed with or worried about just goes away when I look at her. It's wondrous."

"She's just pure joy," he told Entertainment Tonight of Gia in a separate 2025 interview. "She's 2 now, so as they get older and older then..." he shrugged with a laugh. "But it's always wonderful. Pure joy, what can I say?"

While he may not have cracked the code on work-life balance, De Niro does have hard-earned wisdom on how to approach fatherhood.

"The main thing is to support your kids," he shared in his Entertainment Tonight interview. "As long as they're not hurting themselves, doing anything destructive or anything like that, you have to support them — period."

He also stressed the importance of standing behind his children's choices, even the ones he doesn't fully agree with. "Even if you don't go with it — you have to support them," he emphasized. "And they have to know that you support them. Always."