Eva Mendes tragically lost her brother just 12 days before giving birth

Eva Mendes fought an intense week of grief the days leading up to her second daughter being born, when her older brother tragically died of cancer. He tragically passed away 12 days before she welcomed her youngest child into the world, with his funeral taking place the same week she went into labor.

At the current age of 51 years old, the Hitch movie star has had a fantastic acting career, is happily married to fellow actor Ryan Gosling and the couple are parents to two children. Eva Mendes previously revealed how her family’s tragedy inspired her second daughter’s name.

Eva Mendes’ brother tragically died of cancer eight years ago

Eva Mendes is an American actress who began her career onscreen in the late 1990s and is now widely known for starring in 2010’s The Other Guys, and 2005’s Hitch.

Born on 5 March 1974 in Miami, Florida, the star has just turned age 51 years.

Mendes is the daughter of mother Eva Perez Suarez and father Juan Carlos Mendez, and she has three siblings including an older sister Janet, and a younger paternal half-brother named Carlos Alberto “Carlo” Méndez.

Eva Mendes had one older brother, Juan Carlos Méndez, Jr., who was born in 1963 and sadly passed away due to cancer, at age 53, on 17 April 2016.

Their younger brother, Carlo Mendez, confirmed the news on his Instagram page at the time.

@cmendez78 described that mourning the death of his brother was the “hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through” and as he was writing the post he was “still in disbelief.”

Accompanied by a photo of the brothers, the Instagram caption explained that Carlos had passed away peacefully that morning: “He fought with all his might and power and gave cancer one hell of a fight.”

The message also stated that he left behind two children, ages 13 and 5 at the time of his death.

Ryan and Eva welcomed their second daughter after her brother’s death

Barbie star Ryan and Eva have been together since 2011, having first met while filming The Place Beyond the Pines, and have since welcomed two children.

Their daughters are named Esmeralda Amada, who is currently age nine, and Amada Lee, age seven.

Eva Mendes sadly lost her brother to cancer on 17 April 2016. On 29 April that same year, their second daughter Amada was born.

The celebrity has previously revealed the family tragedy inspired her second daughter’s name and they weren’t always planning to name their second daughter Amada. Their first daughter Esmeralda Amada, after Mendes’ grandmother.

The celebrity couple had come up with a few names, like Viviana, for their next child. However, given the timing of her birth, they wanted her name to have a deeper meaning.

In her first interview since giving birth, Mendes told Latina Magazine: “We went with Amada because it was something we kept going back to. And it was an emotional time with the passing of my brother.”

The Hollywood star explained: “We thought how beautiful to go with what made us emotional and with what felt like her. When we looked at her, we thought, ‘Aww, Amadita.'”

It affected her family’s life

The funeral service was the same week she gave birth to her second child, and she credited her family with getting her through such a hard time.

Mendes said: “Losing my brother brought our family closer, and we were already close to begin with. So to just see everybody be there for one another and show up, I feel so lucky to have them.”

“It was really, really intense and obviously beyond heartbreaking, but also kind of beautiful,” she went on to say.

Today, Eva continues to celebrate her younger brother Carlo for reaching his acting career goals.

She describes him on Instagram as her “gorgeous and goofy hermano” who is a “hard-working actor” when he announced his first lead in a film titled Demise.