Robert De Niro became a fan of Ms. Rachel thanks to his 23-month-old daughter, Gia, but he was surprised when the YouTuber made his toddler a special video.
“Is it true that Ms. Rachel is, like, alive and well in your home?” Drew Barrymore asked De Niro, 81, during a sneak peek from the Tuesday, March 25, episode of her talk show, The Drew Barrymore Show.
De Niro explained that the social media star, real name Rachel Accurso, is very much a part of his household. “I realized that also [with] Ms. Rachel, if there’s a problem with the baby and there’s a lot of unhappiness, [just] put on Ms. Rachel and it just immediately goes away,” he teased.
Since De Niro is a supporter of the children’s show, Barrymore enlisted Ms. Rachel, 42, to make a special video just for his child — with a nod to one of his most iconic roles, Taxi Driver.
See Robert De Niro’s Sweetest Quotes About Fatherhood, Raising 7 Kids
“Hi Gia, it’s Ms. Rachel. What’s that? It’s a taxi,” Ms. Rachel said in the video, which De Niro saw for the first time while taping the talk show. “What does a taxi say? ‘Beep beep beep beep.’”
While holding onto a toy taxicab, Ms. Rachel playfully asked, “What does a taxi driver say? ‘Are you talking to me?’”
She added, “Yay, great job. You have such a special bond with your dada and your dada and your mama love you so much. You bring them so much joy. Bye Gia.”
De Niro famously played mentally unstable veteran and nighttime taxi driver, Travis Bickle, in 1976’s Taxi Driver, which earned him an Oscars nomination. In the movie, Bickle has a pivotal scene where he stands in front of a mirror and pulls out a gun, imagining a confrontation.
“You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me?” he asks his fictional foe. “Then who the hell else are you talkin’ to? You talkin’ to me? Well, I’m the only one here. Who the f— do you think you’re talking to?”
Meet Robert De Niro’s 7 Children and Their Moms
The scene has become synonymous with De Niro and his career, so much so that even Ms. Rachel recreated it in her shout-out to Gia. (The actor shares Gia with partner Tiffany Chen, whom he met on the 2015 set of The Intern.)
“Is this live?” De Niro asked Barrymore, 50, of the Ms. Rachel clip, revealing he wanted “Gia to see it” so he was hoping it was recorded.
When Barrymore pondered whether Gia would “like” the video, De Niro candidly replied, “Well, no, it’s nice to show it to her. I don’t know what her reaction will be, but …”
The actress teased, “I just felt like Gaylord Focker, by the way, the way you delivered that line,” referring to his character in Meet the Parents.
“Did we ever know that Ms. Rachel would talk about like Taxi Driver, and I didn’t know I needed that crossover in my life, but I thank you for that because I didn’t see that coming,” Barrymore concluded.
De Niro previously revealed that he watches Ms. Rachel’s YouTube videos, which are focused on childhood development and language skills, because he’s an “early riser.”
Robert De Niro’s Dating History: Grace Hightower, Toukie Smith and More
“I spend my mornings watching Ms. Rachel with her, and I give her her bottle,” the Oscar winner told The Sunday Times in January.
Gia is De Niro’s youngest of seven children. He also shares adult children, Drena, 57, and Raphael, 48, with ex-wife Diahnne Abbott, whom he was married to from 1976 to 1988.
De Niro shares twins Julian and Aaron, 29, with ex Toukie Smith and son Elliot, 27, and daughter Helen, 13, with his second wife, Grace Hightower. The Alto Knights star and Hightower, 69, were married from 1997 to 2018.
