Javier Bardem, 56, does not usually talk about his private life. That is why it was so surprising when, in an interview with The New York Times, he decided to share what happened inside his home in 2011, when Leo, his first child with Penélope Cruz, was born.
He said something few men dare to admit: that he was there, present, supporting her, but that he was unable to understand the true extent of what Penélope was going through. “As a man, you have supported that person, but you have not gone through what she has gone through”, he acknowledged. In his words, pregnancy was not the difficult part. The difficult part came afterward, with postpartum depression that she herself did not know how to name.
Today, 14 years later, Bardem says that Penélope is better and that he finally understood everything he was unable to see at the time.