Robert De Niro: My father was gay

Hollywood star Robert De Niro has revealed that his father was gay and he discovered that years after his parents separated when he was a toddler.

His father was an abstract expressionist painter who died in 1993, reported People magazine.

De Niro, 70, honoured his father in the HBO documentary “Remembering the Artist: Robert De Niro Sr,” premiered yesterday.

“He never told me. He was very private about it. He was loving and affectionate. But he wasn't the kind of dad who played baseball. He liked to take me to the movies on 42nd Street: 'King Kong,' 'Beauty and the Beast,'” De Niro said.