The window into Eva Mendes’ world has closed for the time being.
The reliably private actress, designer and mother of two was already not one to post hardly anything about her longtime partner, Ryan Gosling, or their two daughters, Esmerelda, 7, and Amada, 5. But after a year that was rough for almost everyone, and which at times saw the troll crowd out in full force, she has wiped her Instagram account clean of content.
Not usually one to wade into the fray, last February Mendes clapped back at a commenter who had speculated that she wasn’t posting much because she’d had “work done” and was unhappy with the results.
“I’m posting less because I really want to be present for my family,” the actress and designer chimed in. “My little ones need me and posting takes up too much time. As far as getting work done, I’ll do that whenever I please. But no, that’s not the reason. The reason is I personally cannot juggle family and social media.”
And now it’s all gone, including the video taken by her kids of Mendes modeling clothes and handbags from her own line. Nice job, Internet.
As her daughters got a bit older, Mendes—who welcomed both children without any follow-my-journey fanfare whatsoever—had seemed increasingly comfortable sharing at least a few details about her private world, such as when she divulged on The Kelly Clarkson Show in October 2019 that Gosling knew his way around the kitchen.
Looking at a photo of the two of them from the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, where they were promoting the movie that brought them together, Mendes amusingly recalled, “That’s literally me going, like, ‘I’m not in love with him! I’m not in love with him! What? I’m not in love.'”
And when Kelly Clarkson fawned over how great Mendes looked in the shot, Mendes leaned over the couch, rested her chin in her hand, and sighed, “Look at him, though.”
Not that it was news that Mendes was sprung on the Oscar-nominated actor, but the first rule of their relationship for years was that they didn’t talk about their relationship.
They did go out—to parties and restaurants, of course, and it’s practically mandatory in Los Angeles that actors hike—but the couple’s visible public life since they met on the set of The Place Beyond the Pines in 2011 takes up a very tiny portion of the Cloud.
Though they mixed business with pleasure early on, once they had moved beyond the Pines, Mendes and Gosling quickly reverted to being one of the most elusive pairs in Hollywood, giving up nothing about their romance. Knowing the cat would be out of the bag the second she stepped outside, Mendes steered clear of cameras for months leading up to the births of Esmeralda in 2014 and Amada in 2016, meaning no one outside the family’s inner circle even knew that she was pregnant until about seven months along, both times.
Throughout, while he was as affable and meme-able as always, and sweetly acknowledged his children’s arrivals, Gosling was reluctant to go into detail about Mendes.
“I know that I’m with the person I’m supposed to be with,” he tersely told ET Canada in 2015. Asked what it was that drew him to her, he replied, “That she’s Eva Mendes. There’s nothing else I’m looking for.”
They were on the same page about what they were looking for in an S.O., meanwhile, because Mendes told Women’s Health in April 2019 that having kids was “the furthest thing from my mind,” until she met the one person who fit the bill. “Ryan Gosling happened,” she explained. “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.”
Then, of course, she was happily all in.
