“I would like to try and thank one person properly and say that while I was singing and dancing and playing piano, and having one of the best experiences I ever had on a film,” Gosling said in January 2017 while accepting his Golden Globe for lead actor in a musical or comedy film for La La Land, “my lady was raising our daughter, pregnant with our second and trying to help her brother fight his battle with cancer.
“If she hadn’t taken all that on so that I could have this experience, it would surely be someone else up here other than me today—so,” he looked intently into the camera, “sweetheart, thank you. To my daughters, Amada and Esmeralda, I love you.” (And then he dedicated his award to the memory of Eva’s brother, Juan Carlos Mendes, who died in April 2016, 12 days before Amada was born.)
In the moment, that was an unprecedented glimpse behind closed doors from Gosling, who since he got together with Mendes has usually preferred to talk about literally anything other than his private life in interviews. Asked about Christmas presents for Mendes and the kids in 2016 on Ellen, Gosling charmingly pivoted to saying he wanted to get a new Roomba to help out his existing Roomba, because he felt so bad that the first one was always tirelessly cleaning.
So for the most part, they can rest assured that their love story remains all their own.