Drena De Niro is an American actor, DJ, fashion advisor, and former model who is also a filmmaker. She is the legendary Robert De Niro’s adopted daughter. Leandro De Niro Rodriguez, the grandson of Robert De Niro, just passed away at the age of 19. Drena De Niro, Robert’s daughter, gave birth to Leandro. Drena shared a picture on Instagram to share the news of her son’s passing.
Who Is Drena De Niro?
Drena De Niro was born in New York City on September 3, 1967. Her parents are actress Diahnne Abbott and a guy that Abbott was previously married to. Abbott married Robert De Niro in 1976, and Drena became his legal daughter after that. Since then, she has denied knowing who her biological father was and said that she never knew him.
She has a brother named Raphael who was born in 1976, along with three half-brothers, Aaron, Elliot, and Julian, and a half-sister, Helen from De Niro’s later marriages. Her early years were spent alternating between New York, Los Angeles, and Italy; this nomadic upbringing shaped her aesthetic and creative sensibility. She was named after the East European river Drina, which flows between the borders of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. She studied acting with Susan Batson of The Black Nexxus Acting Studio and Larry Moss, the author of “Intent to Live.”
Drena De Niro’s Career
Drena De Niro started her career in the fashion sector as a model after graduating, and her path finally took her to become a fashion adviser for famous people in Hollywood. Her first creative expression was music because she came from a creative family. She was well-known for her work as a disc jockey. She was employed by renowned fashion designer Giorgio Armani to oversee music for his runway presentations.
She began her acting career with a part in the 1996 release of “Grace of My Heart,” continuing her parents’ legacy. She has multiple jobs with her father. Their first movie together was “Wag the Dog,” which came out in 1997. Great Expectations (1998), Showtime (2002), City by the Sea (2002), New Year’s Eve (2011), The Intern (2015), Joy (2015), and Hands of Stone (2016) are just a few of the iconic films in which they carried on working together.
Additionally, Drena De Niro has a lot of stage experience. She played the lead in Beckett Theatre’s “She’s of a Certain Age,” Eugenie in a Theatrelab production of “The Nola Trilogy,” and Mimi in “Mimi’s Tattoo Parlour” at New York Theatre.
She was cast with John Ventimiglia and Michael Imperioli in Bruno de Almeida’s “On the Run.” She was playing Rita in this role, which was her debut as a starring female character. She voiced the RBTV Lackey in the 2000 animated comedy “The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle” and starred as Caroline in the romance comedy “At First Sight” in 1999.
Drena De Niro’s directorial debut came about in 2001 with PBS’ short documentary ‘Girls and Dolls’, for which she got the Best Directorial Debut for Documentary Award at the 2001 New York Independent Film and Video Festival.
Drena De Niro’s Personal Life
Austin Young, her ex-fiance, accused her of beating him in New York City in August 2011. According to the incident report, De Niro approached Young while he was out walking his dog and began punching him. An eyewitness claims that Young’s dog escaped and he went after it, and that De Niro pursued him down the street, punching and pulling his shirt. Young said to the media that De Niro broke up their brief engagement because her father disapproved of the union.
