Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes are notoriously private about their relationship. When Gosling attended the Barbie world premiere in early July, however, he was spotted wearing a necklace with the letter "E" in the Barbie font. "E, what's that for?" an interviewer asked him. "Eva," he responds, with no further elaboration.
Eva, of course, is actress Eva Mendes. The two have been together since 2011, and share two daughters, but have rarely appeared in public together. As Barbie is in theaters worldwide, take a look back at Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes's complete relationship timeline.
They meet on the set of The Place Beyond the Pines in 2011.
One of their only photos together takes place at the Place Beyond the Pines premiere at the Toronto Film Festival:
Years later, Mendes would write on Instagram with stills of them from Pines, "To say he’s the greatest actor I’ve ever worked with is an understatement."
They welcome a daughter, Esmeralda Amada, in September 2014.
Both Mendes and Gosling have shared they never thought about being parents until meeting each other. The first time he thought he could be a dad, he told GQ this year, was when "Eva said she was pregnant." He added, "I would never want to go back, you know? I’m glad I didn’t have control over my destiny in that way, because it was so much better than I ever had dreamed for myself."
Motherhood, Mendes told Women's Health, "was the furthest thing from my mind." But then, "Ryan Gosling happened. I mean, falling in love with him. Then it made sense for me to have…not kids, but his kids. It was very specific to him."
Mendes stars in Gosling's directorial debut Lost River in 2015.
"I know that I'm with the person I'm supposed to be with," Gosling says in December 2015. The only thing he's looking for in a person? "That she's Eva Mendes."
They welcome their second daughter, Amada Lee in May 2016.
"It’s so fun and beautiful and maddening," Mendes said about parenting. "It’s so hard, of course, but it’s that that feeling of ending your day and putting them to bed and Ryan and I look at each other like, 'We did it, we came out relatively unscathed.'"
Gosling tells GQ, "Your whole life you hear what it’s like to have kids, and all the clichés are true. I felt I knew that everything would be different, but until you experience that, there’s no way to really know what people mean. I only know what it’s like to have my kids. And in my situation, Eva's the dream mother, and they’re dream babies, and it’s like a dream that I’m having right now. I’m dreaming it all."
In a rare public mention at the Golden Globes in 2017: Gosling calls Mendes "sweetheart."
"While I was singing and dancing and playing piano, and having one of the best experiences I’ve ever had on a film, my lady was raising our daughter, pregnant with our second, and trying to help her brother fight his battle with cancer," Gosling said. "If she hadn’t taken all of that on, so that I could have this experience, there would surely be someone up here today, so, sweetheart, thank you."
That same year, a rare photo of the couple is taken in New York City.
Mendes explains their privacy a few years later, telling a fan on Instagram (per Glamour UK), "As far as Ryan, I’ll only post flashbacks of things that are already 'out there' (like pics from movies we did or stuff like that). My man and kids are private. That’s important to me so thanks for getting that. Have a beautiful day. Sending so much love!"
Mendes's "de Gosling" tattoo, posted in 2022.
The tattoo sparked speculation they were married, and in an interview, Mendes calls Gosling her husband. "I do have a tattoo. It’s just a press on…no, it’s not a press on. But I got it years ago. I posted a picture and I’ve gotten a lot of funny questions," Mendes says, declining to elaborate further.
During the Barbie press tour, Mendes supports Gosling.
While Mendes doesn't appear with Gosling during any of the red (er, pink) carpet events around the world, she does take to social media to support her husband. The best one shows her wearing a t-shirt with "Ryan Gosling as Ken" printed on the front:
She also calls him "Mi Hombre, Mi Vida, Mi Amor" in another post.
Emily Burack (she/her) is the Senior News Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, culture, the royals, and a range of other subjects. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram.
