Actor Robert De Niro’s girlfriend, Tiffany Chen, recently described a complication she experienced after delivering the couple’s baby.
De Niro made headlines months ago for becoming a father for the seventh time at the age of 79. Now Chen is discussing what happened after she delivered their daughter, Gia Virginia. She told CBS Mornings that she experienced Bell’s palsy, which causes facial paralysis, following the baby’s birth.
Bell’s palsy affects about 40,000 people in the U.S. each year, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Pregnancy and childbirth are two risk factors for developing the condition.
“When I went home, I started to feel like … my tongue felt strange,” Chen told the outlet.
“It felt a little tingly, just starting to get a little bit numb. And then I realized my face just felt weird. I didn’t know what the feeling was that I was having. It felt weird.”
Chen, 45, went on to discuss how her condition worsened over time.
“When I got home, it was like everything was starting to just fall down on itself. Like, my face was melting on itself,” Chen explained. “And then a week after giving birth, that was when it all hit. And I called my doctor, and I … was trying to eat.”
She said, “I went to put a fork of food in my mouth and everything came out. I couldn’t eat. And then I was starting to slur. So I said, ‘There’s something really going on here.'”
Eventually, things got bad enough that the martial arts professional was told to go to the ER immediately. “I lost all facial function the minute I got into the hospital,” she said.
De Niro and Chen were rumored to be romantic partners for years before they announced the birth of their daughter. The “Meet the Parents” star revealed that Chen had given birth while he was promoting the film, “About My Father.”
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“I mean, there’s no way around it with kids. I don’t like to have to lay down the law and stuff like that. But, [sometimes] you just have no choice,” De Niro said at the time. “And any parent, I think, would say the same thing. You always want to do the right thing by the children and give them the benefit of the doubt but sometimes you can’t.”
The interviewer asked about the actor’s six children, which is when De Niro corrected him by saying, “Seven, actually.”
De Niro’s oldest daughter Drena is 51.