Robert De Niro’s partner Tiffany Chen reveals she got postpartum Bell’s palsy after daughter’s birth

Robert De Niro’s partner Tiffany Chen has revealed that she was diagnosed with postpartum Bell’s palsy after giving birth to their daughter – explaining that she ‘lost all facial function’ which resulted in her ‘slurring her words’ and being unable to ‘eat.’

In her first interview since welcoming the Hollywood icon’s seventh child, Tiffany, 45, spoke in detail about the horrific condition to CBS Mornings.

In a preview for the sit-down, which will air in full on Friday, the new mother explained that soon after returning home from the hospital following the birth of her and the 79-year-old actor’s daughter, Gia Virginia Chen De Niro, in April, she noticed that her tongue had become numb.

She said her whole face soon began to feel ‘weird,’ but she was unable to pinpoint what was causing the sensation. 

‘My tongue felt strange, it felt a little tingly, it was starting to get a little bit numb,’ she recalled to host Gayle King.

‘I realized, like, my face just felt weird. I didn’t know what the feeling was that I was having. It felt weird.’

Tiffany gazed in the mirror and said it looked like ‘everything’ on her face was ‘falling down’ and ‘melting on itself.’

She explained that her symptoms continued to worsen and within days, she began struggling to speak.

It was also difficult for her to eat because she said everything would ‘come out’ of her mouth. 

She revealed: ‘I was trying to eat. I went to put just a fork of food in my mouth, and everything came out. I couldn’t eat. 

‘And then I was starting to slur. I [realized], there’s something really going on here.’

A terrified Tiffany decided to call her doctor, who told her to go to the hospital immediately.

‘I lost all facial function the minute I got into the hospital,’ she said. 

Per Mayo Clinic, Bell’s palsy is a ‘condition that causes sudden weakness in the muscles on one side of the face.’

It’s caused by swelling and inflammation of he nerve that controls the muscles in the face, and is very common post-pregnancy. If untreated, it can result in permanent paralysis. 

Robert and Tiffany have been linked since summer 2021, after reportedly meeting on the film set of the actor’s hit 2015 comedy, The Intern.

The Goodfellas star first revealed that he had welcomed his latest child – which is his seventh – in May, after a reporter from ET Canada asked him what it was like to be a father of six children. 

The actor responded by saying he actually had seven as he had, in fact, ‘just had a baby.’

At the time, he did not share the name or gender of the youngster, nor did he reveal the identity of his baby’s mother.

However, it has since been confirmed that the Good Fellas alum’s girlfriend of over a year, martial arts instructor Tiffany, is the mother of his latest addition.

When asked if the pregnancy was ‘planned’ by Page Six days later, Robert responded by asking the outlet, ‘How you could not plan that kind of thing?’

He also told People in June that his other kids – Drena, 51, Raphael, 46, twins Julian and Aaron, 27, Elliot, 24, and Helen, 11 – had not met his new daughter ‘yet,’ but added, ‘They will.’

Tiffany’s candid interview comes as her boyfriend mourns the tragic passing of his 18-year-old grandson, Leandro De Niro Rodriguez. 

Leandro’s shock death happened on July 5 when the teenager’s lifeless body was found sitting in a chair inside his $950,000, one-bedroom apartment in the Cipriani Club Residences on Wall Street. 

Leandro was the son of Robert’s adopted daughter Drena and artist Carlos Rodriguez. 

A police source told DailyMail.com at the time that a ‘white powdery substance’ was found near his body and that there were no signs of trauma. 

Days later, his mom revealed that he had passed away from ‘fentanyl laced’ drugs. 

She wrote in an Instagram comment: ‘Someone sold him fentanyl laced pills that they knew were laced yet still sold them to him.

‘So for all these people still f**king around selling and buying s**t, my son is gone forever.’