She thought he was a good fella from the get-go.
Robert De Niro’s partner, Tiffany Chen, revealed how they first hit it off while working together on the 2015 flick “The Intern.”
The martial arts instructor dropped the romantic bombshell during a recent appearance on “CBS Mornings” — her first since having the “Goodfellas” star’s seventh child in May and then suffering a bad bout of Bell’s palsy.
“When we were working it was just work, and then a couple of years later we got back in touch and I said, ‘Oh, I guess we get along,’ and I guess we really get along,” Chen, 45, told host Gayle King while holding baby Gia Virginia Chen De Niro during the tot’s first-ever TV appearance.
The lovebirds first sparked romance rumors after a PDA-filled outing in 2021. However, they first met on the set of Nancy Meyers’ 2015 romantic comedy “The Intern,” in which she played De Niro’s character’s tai chi instructor.
When asked about his martial arts prowess in the movie, Chen said: “I’ve had better students but he was OK. He had a lot of other stuff to do in the movie.”
From there, the infatuation blossomed into a full-blown romance.
“That’s just how it evolved,” recalled Chen, who said her favorite aspect of the “Mean Streets” star is “how much he loves his family.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Chen opened up about her battle with Bell’s palsy, an affliction characterized by sudden weakness in the muscles on one side of the face, leading to a lopsided expression.
Chen said she initially noticed something was awry after giving birth to baby Gia, whereupon she experienced a host of unusual facial symptoms.
“Right after delivering, I noticed I was getting a sharp pain behind my left ear while I was in the room just after having my C-section,” she said.
While doctors initially dismissed it as postnatal fluid buildup, symptoms began to snowball until she felt like her “face was melting,” Chen said.
She subsequently lost all function in her face, including the ability to eat, and had to use her hands to manually move her lip and chin to make certain sounds, as she couldn’t even say her soulmate’s name.
However, the determined mother said that her partner was “strong and supportive” through the whole ordeal.
“He was very sweet. He tried to say that he didn’t see any difference, he didn’t see any change,” Chen recalled. “He was like, ‘No, you look fine — maybe you look a little stern.’”
That comes after De Niro revealed in May that she had given birth to baby Gia, their first child together and the “Raging Bull” star’s seventh kid.
The sextet came to light after the Oscar winner corrected an ET Canada reporter who said the star had six kids at the time, with De Niro clarifying, “Seven, actually. I just had a baby.”
The 79-year-old Oscar winner is also father to Drena, 51, and Raphael, 46, with Diahnne Abbott, as well as twins Aaron and Julian, 27, with Toukie Smith.
De Niro additionally had two children, Elliot, 25, and Helen, 11, with Gracie Hightower.
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