Robert De Niro's 29-year-old child comes out as trans, inspired by 'The Little Mermaid'

Robert De Niro's 29-year-old child has come out as transgender. Sporting long, pink locs and inspired by The Little Mermaid, Airyn De Niro, formerly known as Aaron, began taking cross-sex hormones in 2024. Airyn is "an aspiring model and voice actor studying to be a mental health counselor" and an avid gamer.

Airyn said that parents De Niro and Toukie Smith, who conceived the child through a surrogate mother in 1995 along with Airyn's twin brother, have been nothing but supportive of the transition. Airyn told Them Magazine that part of the inspiration for the transition was to be closer to black women. 

"I think a big part of [my transition] is also the influence Black women have had on me," Airyn said. "I think stepping into this new identity, while also being more proud of my Blackness, makes me feel closer to them in some way."

Airyn also has the desire to stay femme even into old age. "Who wants to be an old man?" Airyn asked Them, and is also enthralled with "Trans women being honest and open, especially [in] public spaces like social media and getting to see them in their success."



It was Halle Bailey's hairstyle in The Little Mermaid that spurred Airyn to go to a black hair salon and get locs. Those locs, Airyn said, "just felt right. I feel like I'm meant to be doing this." Them loved the style, saying it looked "weightless and colorful as butterfly wings."

In addition to The Little Mermaid, Airyn mentioned taking inspiration from Laverne Cox, Marsha P. Johnson, KeKe Palmer, Kat Graham, Jools Lebron, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, Naomi Campbell, and Raven-Symoné.

Them goes on to call Airyn's transition "a birthright." Them writes: "In the same way that caterpillars are born knowing how to build a chrysalis in which to transform, the practice of looking and feeling beautiful is not a shallow pursuit for Airyn; it is her birthright."

Airyn told the outlet that bullying was a problem during childhood. "I always grew up a bigger-bodied person," Airyn said. "Everybody else in the family [was] relatively thin or fit; I was not, so I sort of stood out like a sore thumb and there wasn’t anybody in my family that could relate to that experience." It was this bigger body and apparent femininity that caused peers to taunt Airyn, Them notes.

Part of the feelings during Airyn's teen years had to do with feeling excluded from the normal process of puberty in a social sense. "Growing up when people started hitting puberty and starting liking each other... I never had that," Airyn said. 

"I never had a boyfriend at a young age, even though looking back, do we really need to be dating in middle school?" said Airyn, who is male and came out as gay in high school. "I was like, ‘Wow, these things signify I’m very unwanted. I’m not desirable. I’m not attractive like the other people, the other girls, the other boys."

Airyn lamented not fitting the gay male "beauty standard" and complained about feeling out of place while growing up. "I was always told I was too much of something or not enough of something growing up: too big, not skinny enough. Not Black enough, not white enough. Too feminine, not masculine enough. It was never just, 'You’re just right, just the way you are.'"

Now taking cross-sex hormones, apparently Airyn, too, has decided that Aaron was not "just right" and is seeking to drastically change that through drugs, social transition, and presentation. Airyn joins the ranks of many other Hollywood nepo babies who have come out as trans, including the children of Jamie Lee Curtis, Naomi Watts, Cynthia Nixon, Charlize Theron, Cher, Dwyane Wade, Gabrielle Union, Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck, Sting, Rosie O’Donnell, Sade, Sigourney Weaver, and Marlon Wayans.