Eva Mendes shares more details on childcare pact she made with Ryan Gosling

She felt her previous comments about it were misinterpreted

Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes seen at Tao Restaurant for SNL after party on September 30, 2017 in New York City
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Eva Mendes famously took a step back from acting to raise the two daughters she shares with Ryan Gosling, and now she's shedding more light on how she made the decision to focus on her family in that way.

"For me…recently in an interview I said it was almost like [a] nonverbal agreement Ryan and I had," Eva told Glamour.

"That got — not twisted, but taken out of context because I meant it was almost a no-brainer.

"But there was actually obviously a lot of thought and conversation — especially on my end — of what I wanted to do with my life. It was very clear to me that I didn’t want to be away from the kids."

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The comments Eva was referring to here were the ones she made on the Today show a few weeks ago about raising the children at home while Ryan made films.

"It was like a no-brainer. I'm so lucky," she said at the time. "And I was like, if I can have this time with my children — and I still work, I just didn’t act... because acting takes you on locations, it takes you away."

She continued: "It was almost just like a non-verbal agreement that it was like, 'OK, he’s going to work and I’m going to work. I’m just going to work here.' He went and he did his job. He just happens to be really good at his job. And he did it and he came home."

When she read those quotes back, she felt she needed to explain herself more.

"I just saw these quotes that there was a 'nonverbal agreement,'" Eva told Glamour. "In print, it made me go, Oh, wait, that makes it seem like there was no communication. It didn’t just happen. There was a lot of thought on my end on what I wanted to do with my life.

"So when I said that — casually in a conversation — the context is that after years of me having not only a 20-year career by that point acting, but years of me thinking about it and what I wanted to do...it just came across as too simple and not accurate. It was one of those things like, Oh, bummer; that’s not what I was trying to say."

Eva and Ryan have been together since 2011, and share daughters Esmeralda, 9, and Amada, 8.

Iris Goldsztajn
Iris Goldsztajn is a celebrity and royal news writer for Marie Claire. As a London-based freelance journalist, she writes about wellness, relationships, pop culture, beauty and more for the likes of InStyle, Women's Health, Bustle, Stylist and Red. Aside from her quasi-personal investment in celebs' comings and goings, Iris is especially interested in debunking diet culture and destigmatising mental health struggles. Previously, she was the associate editor for Her Campus, where she oversaw the style and beauty news sections, as well as producing gift guides, personal essays and celebrity interviews. There, she worked remotely from Los Angeles, after returning from a three-month stint as an editorial intern for Cosmopolitan.com in New York. As an undergraduate at the University of California, Los Angeles, she interned at goop and C California Style and served as Her Campus' national style and LGBTQ+ editor. Iris was born and raised in France by a French father and an English mother. Her Spotify Wrapped is riddled with country music and One Direction, and she can typically be found eating her body weight in cheap chocolate.