Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara Have a Son Together — What We Know About River
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Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara first locked eyes on the set of Spike Jonze's sci-fi romance film "Her" in 2012, and though they had an electric connection on screen, Joaquin initially thought that his costar didn't like him. "She's the only girl I ever looked up on the internet. We were just friends, email friends. I'd never done that. Never looked up a girl online," the "Joker" actor told Vanity Fair in 2019. The two reunited again on the set of the 2016 film "Mary Magdalene," which is where their romance took off.
Joaquin and Mara dated for a few years before privately getting engaged in 2019, per People. By 2020, the couple welcomed their first child together, River Lee Phoenix, named after Joaquin's late brother, River, who died in 1993. The two are extremely private about their personal life and keep their son out of the spotlight, but have shared some insights into their parenting experience over the years.
Read on to learn more about the Hollywood couple's son, River!
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River Phoenix
Joaquin and Mara weren't the ones to announce the news of their son's birth in 2020. According to the Los Angeles Times, Victor Kossakovsky, a Russian filmmaker that worked with Joaquin on the 2020 documentary film "Gunda," revealed the news at the Zurich Film Festival in September 2020, telling the crowd, "[Phoenix] just got a baby, by the way...A beautiful son called River."
The couple haven't publicly shared photos of River, and keep their son out of the spotlight. Since becoming a mom, however, Mara shared an open letter as part of Farm Sanctuary's Mother's Day campaign (via People), writing in part, "Raising our baby, River, has opened my heart to a whole new life filled with hope and more determination than ever to create a kinder and more sustainable world."
Joaquin has rarely talked about fatherhood or his son to the press, but he has revealed that he and Mara don't plan on forcing River to subscribe to their beliefs about animal rights. "I'm not going to perpetuate the lie, but I'm also not going to force him to be vegan. I'll support him. That's my plan," he told The Sunday Times in 2021.