A better world for children. Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix publicly confirmed the birth of their son, River, in an op-ed published on Monday, November 2.
Mara, 35, and Phoenix, 46, whose baby news made headlines in September, spoke out against the migrant children crisis in the United States in a joint article for People.
“Last week, we learned that the parents of 545 children separated at the border by immigration officers have not yet been found. … As new parents, it’s unbearable to imagine what it would feel like to have our child taken away from us for a day, let alone years,” the couple wrote. “But that’s the very situation those 545 children and their parents have been living through. As Americans, it’s our responsibility to continue paying attention to the plight of these families and get answers for why they still have not been located.”
The duo continued, “We have to ask ourselves: Is this the country that we want? Are these our values? How will it feel to explain to our son, when he asks us about this time and how we treated scared, defenseless children, some of whom may never see their parents again?”
Director Victor Kossakovsky previously spilled the beans about River’s arrival during a Q&A at the 2020 Zurich Film Festival on September 27.
“He just got a baby, by the way, his name was … a beautiful son called River, so he cannot promote it now,” the Russian filmmaker told the crowd.
Mara and Phoenix named their son after his late older brother, River Phoenix, who died in 1993 at the age of 23 of a drug overdose.
Us Weekly confirmed in May that the pair, who were first linked in 2016, were expecting their first child. An insider told Us at the time that the actress was “about six months along” and “Joaquin is great and has been accompanying her to appointments.”
A year earlier, Us confirmed that the notoriously private duo got engaged.
“They don’t really like to go out,” an insider told Us in July 2019. “They mainly just like to be with each other as the two of them. They’re in their own bubble.”
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