It’s been a while since we’ve seen Eva Mendes on the red carpet. Even while her beau, Ryan Gosling is in the limelight this awards season for his role in Oscar winning modern musical La La Land, she hasn’t been seen by his side. Before the tabloids can go into a tizzy about where there’s trouble in that relationship, the Hitch actress is setting the record straight. She says she’d rather be at home bringing up her children with Ryan Gosling, than looking pretty at Hollywood dos.
As the covergirl of Shape magazine‘s April 2017 issue, she shared in the accompanying interview, “What people don’t know about me is that I love being home. Instead of hitting the red carpet, I’d rather be with our girls.”
She’s referring to the two beautiful daughters she had with Ryan Gosling – Esmeralda, aged 2 and Amada, aged 11 months.
Being of Cuban decent, she decided to keep it traditional when it came to naming her children. “My grandmother’s name is Amada, and Esmerelda Amada is the name of our oldest. We had a few names picked out for our new baby, and when she was born, we didn’t feel like those names were her. We came up with a few more, even that morning, and tried them out. We were like, ‘What about Viviana?’ But we just kept going back to Amada.”
Unlike most celebrity kids who are brought up lavishly in modern pop culture, Eva Mendes is more the traditional kind and insists on her children knowing where their heritage comes from. “We’re constantly playing Cuban music. I speak to them in Spanish, and my mom speaks to Esmerelda in Spanish. Well, now she speaks to both of them in Spanish. Any time I have an opportunity to introduce her or them…to my culture, whether it’s through music or food, I do.”
Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes have been going strong for a while now, and mostly keep their relationship extremely private. They met in 2011 on the sets of their movie, The Place Beyond The Pines. During his Golden Globe acceptance speech for Best Actor for La La Land, Ryan thanked his “sweetheart” for being the pillar in their family and taking care of their young family while he got to make a revolutionary movie out on the road.
