Joaquin Phoenix Calls Long-Time Love Rooney Mara His ‘Wife’, Sparks Marriage Speculation

Joaquin Phoenix has sparked rumors that he may have quietly exchanged vows with Rooney Mara.

During the Sunday, September 29, episode of the “Talk Easy” podcast hosted by writer and filmmaker Sam Fragoso, Phoenix, 49, labeled Mara, 39, his “wife.”

Phoenix and Fragoso had been discussing Phoenix’s 2020 Best Actor Oscars acceptance speech for his work in 2019’s Joker when Phoenix revealed he had found inspiration for his words through “talking with my mom and my wife.”

The Joker: Folie à Deux actor then expanded on how he prepared his acceptance speech should he win the Oscar, referring to Mara, who announced on February 29 that she was expecting the couple’s second child, by her first name.

“Rooney was like, ‘That’s what you should say’,” Phoenix told Fragoso.

The couple, who share a son, River, born in 2020, got engaged in July 2019. The pair had dated for several years after reconnecting on the set of 2018’s Mary Magdalene where Mara played the film’s title character alongside Phoenix, who portrayed Jesus. Mara and Phoenix appeared together in the 2013 film Her, although it is unclear when they first met.

Phoenix told Vanity Fair in an interview published on October 1, 2019, and printed in the magazine’s November 2019 issue, that he had thought Mara “despised” him during their time together on the set of Her. He told the outlet that he later realized Mara was “just shy” and liked him.

“She’s the only girl I ever looked up on the internet,” he told the outlet. “We were just friends, email friends. I’d never done that. Never looked up a girl online.”

Fast-forward to 2024 and a source told Us Weekly exclusively in February that the couple were “ecstatic” to be welcoming a second child into their family.

“Rooney and Joaquin love being parents,” a source told Us at the time. “They’re a team and are really relishing this journey together.”

Mara debuted her baby bump at the Berlin International Film Festival premiere of La Cocina on February 16 while posing for photos on the event’s red carpet.

Of the couple’s first child, River, whose name nods to Phoenix’s late brother, River Phoenix, a source told Us in May 2021 that the youngster has changed the couple’s lives.

“River has enhanced their lives more than they’ve ever imagined and has brought them closer together,” the source said at the time. “They’re a very private couple and want River to have a normal, healthy upbringing.”