Leandro de Niro Rodriguez. Image from Instagram / @drenadeniro
NEW YORK — Leandro De Niro Rodriguez, a grandson of Robert De Niro, has died at 19.
His mother, Drena De Niro, announced the news Monday in an Instagram post.
“I don’t know how to live without you but I’ll try to go on and spread the love and light that you so made me feel in getting to be your mama,” she wrote. “You were so deeply loved and appreciated and I wish that love alone could have saved you.”
Drena shared Leandro with artist Carlos Mare, who posted black squares sans caption on his Instagram accounts.
In another Instagram post, Drena said that Leandro “didn’t deserve to die like this.”
“The same man that picked us up from the hospital when you were born drove us to the funeral home where I touched and held you for the last time… You were kindness acceptance and love and I can’t believe any of this is real. You made everything bearable and every burden lighter. You didn’t deserve to die like this but I can only believe that God needed a strong powerful angel in their army . I’m holding you every second of every moment I’m my heart and memories until I’m with you again,” she said.
Meanwhile, Robert De Niro, who just recently announced that he was again a father earlier this year, said that he is “deeply distressed” by his grandson’s death.
“I’m deeply distressed by the passing of my beloved grandson Leo. We’re greatly appreciative of the condolences from everyone. We ask that we please be given privacy to grieve our loss of Leo,” Robert De Niro said in a statement.
Further details were not immediately available. Later Monday, De Niro’s publicist shared another statement from Drena De Niro.
“It is with immeasurable shock and and sadness that we say goodbye to our beloved son Leo. We thank you for the outpouring of love and support and ask that we are given privacy at this time to process this inconsolable grief,” she said in the statement.
In response to a request to confirm a TMZ report that Leandro was found in a New York apartment, New York City police wrote that “an 18-year-old male was found unconscious, unresponsive and was pronounced deceased by EMS on scene” at a Wall Street address that houses the Cipriani Club Residences. Leandro only recently turned 19, news outlets report.
The medical examiner’s office will determine the cause of death.
Drena, 51, is the oldest of Robert De Niro’s now seven children. The actor adopted her when he married her mother, Diahnne Abbott, his first wife. Drena is also an actor, with roles in “Joy,” “The Intern” and “Mozart in the Jungle,” among a long list of credits.
Leandro also had acting credits to his name, with roles in three projects also featuring his mother: 2005’s “The Collection,” and 2018’s “Cabaret Maxime” and “A Star Is Born.” In Bradley Cooper’s remake, the mother and son played mother and son — wife and child to Dave Chappelle’s character.