Hollywood actor Joaquin Phoenix, 49, recently fuelled marriage rumors with his longtime partner, Rooney Mara. During a Sunday appearance on the Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso podcast, the Joker star publicly referred to the 39-year-old as his ‘wife’ for the first time while discussing his 2020 Oscars speech.
Joaquin Phoenix shared with host Sam Fragoso that the inspiration for his Oscar acceptance speech came from a conversation he had with his “mom” and “wife”. Moments later, the 49-year-old confirmed he was referring to Rooney Mara by mentioning her name: “Rooney was like, ‘That’s what you should say!'” Despite calling Mara his wife for the first time publicly, Phoenix did not clarify their marital status during the podcast.
Phoenix first met Mara in 2012 while working on Spike Jonze’s drama Her, though they didn’t start dating at the time. They reconnected while filming Mary Magdalene and went public with their relationship in 2017, eventually getting engaged in 2019. Although they’ve kept their relationship mostly private, Phoenix once revealed in a 2019 interview, “She’s the only girl I ever looked up on the internet.”
Phoenix and Mara welcomed their first child, 4-year-old son, River, in 2020. Earlier this year, the couple revealed they were expecting their second child.