Robert De Niro's Girlfriend Tiffany Chen Details Experience With Bell's Palsy After Childbirth
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Robert De Niro's girlfriend, and newly-minted mother of the actor's 7th child, Tiffany Chen, is opening up about her postpartum experience.
The 45-year-old martial arts instructor, who first met the actor on set of 2015 movie The Intern, sat down with Gayle King for a CBS Mornings interview, where she detailed her complications with Bell's palsy following childbirth.
In a preview clip of the conversation, which debuts in full on Friday, Chen revealed that shortly after welcoming the couple's baby girl, Gia Virginia, she "lost all facial function" because of the condition.
After going home, she remembered her tongue feeling "strange," saying, "It felt a little tingly... just starting to get a little bit numb. And then I realized my face just felt weird. I didn't know what the feeling was that I was having. It felt weird."
"Did it look different to you? Your face, when you looked in the mirror?" King asked Chen, to which she responded, "Yeah."
She continued, divulging that she felt as if her face "was melting on itself."
"And then a week after giving birth, that was when it all hit," Chen recalled, adding that she "couldn't eat" because "everything came out" when she tried putting a fork to her mouth. "And then I was starting to slur. So I said, 'There's something really going on here.'"
After calling the doctor and being admitted into a medical facility, she "lost all facial function the minute I got into the hospital," she further explained.
Bell's palsy, also known as acute peripheral facial palsy, is a condition that causes sudden weakness in the muscles on one side of the face, according to Mayo Clinic. While the exact cause is unknown, experts think it's brought on by swelling and inflammation of the nerve that controls certain facial muscles.
Symptoms—which can include facial droop and difficulty making facial expressions, such as closing your eye or smiling, drooling, mild weakness to total facial paralysis, sensitivity to sound, headache, loss of taste, and pain around the jaw—can occur at any age, and usually start to improve within a few weeks, with complete recovery in about six months.
A small number of people, however, continue to have some Bell's palsy symptoms for life, the medical site notes.
For Chen's full interview, tune in to CBS Mornings on Friday, July 14, between 7-9 a.m. ET.
Next, Everything We Know About Tiffany Chen, the Mother of Robert De Niro's New Baby
