Wild Joker
Joaquin’s twisted marriage
With his smash hit movie Joker, Joaquin Phoenix is winning raves – and stirring up Oscar buzz – for his tortured turn as the deranged killer. But behind the scenes, the Hollywood A-lister is truly, madly and tenderly in love.
The rumour mill went into overdrive this month when the WalktheLine actor stepped out with his partner Rooney Mara with what appeared to be a solid gold wedding band on her finger.
It would have come as no surprise to many if the lovebirds had tied the knot in a hush-hush wedding. But an insider says the couple don’t believe in marriage and are, instead, about to solidify their relationship with a simple commitment ceremony.
“Joaquin’s proposed to Rooney unofficially,” spills the source. “And while it’s not an engagement to be married, he wants her to be his wife in the most untraditional of terms.”
The couple first met on the set of 2013 movie Her – in which Joaquin played a lonely depressive who falls in love with his computer’s operating system and Rooney played his estranged wife.
Joaquin shared this month that he thought TheSocial Network actress “despised” him, only realising later she was “just shy”. It didn’t stop him checking her out online, however, laughing, “She’s the only girl I ever looked up on the internet.”
It wasn’t until 2017, when they were cast together in the biblical movie Mary Magdalene, that sparks really flew. They made their debut as a couple at the Cannes Film Festival that year and revealed they’d moved in together in the Hollywood Hills.
“She broke her vow to never live in LA in order to be closer to Joaquin, “another source reveals. “Her friends knew it was serious as soon as that happened because she’s always hated LA.”
Our insider, however, dishes that Joaquin, 44, and Rooney, 34, have watched many of their famous friends suffer from the pressure of being part of a “celebrity couple” and agreed from the start to keep their relationship out of the spotlight.
“They have very strict rules,” explains the insider. “They pride themselves on being able to live amongst fellow A-listers while living a very simple life.”
For Joaquin, the “grounding” relationship is the best thing that’s ever happened to him. His pathway to fame and fortune was an unusual one: his parents John and Arlyn Bottom spent much of the ’60s travelling around the West Coast of the US living a hippy lifestyle in their VW microbus.
During this time, they joined the now notorious religious cult Children of God and after having their first son, River, they headed off to Puerto Rico and Venezuela to spread the word.
Joaquin Bottom and his sisters Rain and Liberty were born during this time, and might have continued to live their parents’ nomadic lifestyle if their cult hadn’t been exposed for allegedly introducing children to sex at a young age and for using sex to lure in new recruits.
Disgusted, disillusioned, broke and expecting their fifth baby – a daughter called Summer – the Bottoms cut ties with the religion and returned by cargo ship to the US. There, they changed their surname to Phoenix and began channelling their progeny into show business.
Joaquin’s surname wasn’t the only moniker he changed in his young life. At one point, the youngster decided he didn’t like his Christian name
either and his dad gave him a new one – Leaf. He went by Leaf Phoenix for years until River decided, when they were young adults, that his talented younger brother would do better in showbiz if he returned to his original name.
The Phoenix boys were close and despite River’s star beginning to rise after his break-out performance in the 1986 movie StandByMe, their bond remained strong.
When River died of a drug overdose outside a Hollywood nightclub in 1993, aged just 23, Joaquin and his sister Rain were by his side – Joaquin desperately calling the emergency services in the hope that his brother could be saved – and it had a dramatic and long-lasting effect on his life.
Before his death, River had predicted that Joaquin would become a much bigger star than himself and that turned out to be true. The Gladiator actor has three Academy Award nominations to his credit and the buzz around Hollywood is that he will finally bag one for his turn as the Joker.
Rooney, says our source, was right behind him as he prepared for the role of a lifetime.
“Joaquin had to lose 25kg for the part,” dishes the insider, “and Rooney cooked all his meals from scratch, banned eating out and worked out with him every single day. It’s a testament of how supportive they are of one another in every aspect of their lives.”
Adds another pal, “The romance was a slow build. She’s brought out a lighter side of him that he never thought was possible. For Joaquin, everything has finally come together.”
So much so that last month the actor enigmatically thanked Rooney for her support while accepting an award at the Toronto International Film Festival, saying, “One last thing – somewhere here, I don’t know where, is a filthy dragon and I want to rip its wings off and fasten a blanket and sleep with it forever. I love you.”