Eva Mendes kept it low-key at the 2024 Oscars — but still found a way to show up for longtime love Ryan Gosling.
Mendes, 50, opted to skip the red carpet at the Sunday, March 10, awards show, instead choosing to support Gosling, 43, from backstage. Prior to the ceremony, the actress took to Instagram to share a photo of herself outside Gosling’s dressing room, captioning the post, “Always by my man.”
After Gosling took the stage to sing his Barbie Oscar-nominated song, “I’m Just Ken,” Mendes posted a second behind-the-scenes Instagram snap where she donned the bright pink-studded suit jacket, black cowboy hat and matching sunnies that the actor wore during his performance.
“You took Ken all the way to the Oscars, RG,” she wrote alongside the event pic. “Now come home, we need to put the kids to bed. 💋.”
“I’m Just Ken” was up for Best Original Song at the 96th Academy Awards, ultimately losing out to another Barbie track, Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made for?” which was the film’s only win of the night.
Barbie received eight nominations in total, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Production Design and Best Costume Design. Gosling also received a Best Actor in a Supporting Role nomination for the role of Ken, a win that went to Robert Downey Jr. for Oppenheimer.
Sunday’s ceremony wraps up this year’s awards circuit for Gosling and his Barbie castmates. Despite the film’s global success — it brought in more than $1 billion at the box office — Mendes’ brother, Carlo Mendez, exclusively told Us Weekly that Gosling’s main focus will always be parenting his daughters, Esmeralda, 9, and Amada, 7.
“[They are] always, family first,” Mendez told Us of Gosling and Mendes’ lifestyle while attending the Children Uniting Nation’s 24th Annual Academy Awards Celebration and Viewing Dinner in Beverly Hills on Sunday. “What else do you have in life if you don’t have family?”
Gosling and Mendes, who have been together for more than a decade, have a “great understanding” of one another, Mendez told Us, crediting the couple’s “communication” for their longstanding romance.
“I think the key in any relationship is communication and having an understanding of what each person is going through and just talking it out,” he said. “It’s pretty easy when you do that. It’s communication and understanding as well. They’re soulmates.”
Earlier this month, a source exclusively told Us that Gosling’s recent Oscars nods have been a “dream come true,” but he doesn’t “relish” the attention that comes with being in Hollywood. “It’s part of the job for him, but he much prefers letting others shine,” the insider said. “He doesn’t need to be the star of the show.”
While speaking to GQ in May 2023, Gosling admitted that all of his life priorities changed when he met Mendes while costarring in 2012’s The Place Beyond the Pines.
“I wasn’t thinking about kids before I met her, but after I met Eva, I realized that I just didn’t want to have kids without her,” he said. “And there were moments on The Place Beyond the Pines where we were pretending to be a family, and I didn’t really want it to be pretend anymore. I realized that this would be a life I would be really lucky to have.”
