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Rosario Dawson has a career on the big screen to be envied. She rose to fame in fan favorites including Bad Boys II, Josie and the Pussycats, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, Haunted Mansion, and many more. She’s been prolific in TV as well, and lent her voice to video games, audiobooks, and animated projects. The Ahsoka beauty has been nominated for a slew of prestigious awards for her work in film, and even received an NAACP Image Award for her role in 2009’s Seven Pounds.
But that’s not the most important part of the high-profile actress’s life — she’s a mom, too, and is about to be a grandma! Find out more about Rosario’s one daughter, Isabella, below.
Who is Isabella Dawson?
Isabella is Rosario’s only child, and she was adopted at the age of 11 in 2014. A source opened up about the adoption at the time, saying that the actress had always wanted to raise a child. “She’s always been family oriented and knew that she wanted to raise a child,” a source told Us Weekly. “She wants to have a relationship with her daughter like she has with her mother.”
Rosario’s poignant adoption of Isabella follows her own adoption. “I always wanted to adopt kids cause my dad adopted me,” she once told Latina magazine. “That idea has stayed in the back of my head, but lately, I’ve been thinking about it more.”
“My mother and grandmother are extraordinary women, and they’re getting older,” she continued in the 2008 interview. “It struck me recently that one day I might be sitting around with my children, going ‘Your grandma was an amazing woman; I really wish you could’ve known her.’ That makes me sad cause it would be a waste to not have these people know each other. Whatever time I have, I want it.”
Rosario didn’t hold back when gushing about how much she loves her adopted father. “My [adopted] dad started dating my mom when she was eight months pregnant with me,” she said. “He was beautiful. I wanted to be him. I love my father, he is amazing to me. I was daddy’s little girl growing up.”
Of the adoption itself, she once said it was an inevitability. “It wasn’t even a question; it was clearly meant to be,” she told Health in 2021.
Isabella, now 21 years old, is sweetly named after a line of family members. “She’s named after my grandmother, so my grandmother was Isabel,” Rosario said during an appearance on Parents magazine’s podcast, We Are Family, in November 2021. “My mom’s Isabel Celeste, I’m Rosario Isabel.” Isabella also goes by her nickname, Lola.
What Has Rosario Said About Her Daughter?
Rosario clearly feels committed to motherhood. “For me, it’s what I would imagine as my first marriage almost,” she told PEOPLE NOW in 2018. “It’s a real commitment for life and it’s really powerful that she was old enough to choose me back, so it’s really, really beautiful.”
She also emphasized that “chosen family” is incredibly important. “I’ve done that Rent thing of having family that are really important to you but you met them at 10 and 20 and 30 [and] it’s the same thing,” she said at the time. “I got to meet my daughter and she met me and it was really clear from the get. It’s remarkable. We are family. She is absolutely my kid, I am absolutely her mother.”
Speaking to Health in 2021, Rosario stressed her gratitude for Isabella. “I’m grateful for her development, our maturation and our connection,” she divulged. “To have a young person move in with you and to have to really consciously work through triggers and that kind of stuff is a really different thing than being pregnant and having your baby grow up in front of you — to be able to see how we’re getting closer and closer. We are a family, and it’s beautiful.”
In 2018, the Rent star told PEOPLE that her daughter has a remarkable resemblance to her mother. “When we walk down the street, no one ever questions whether or not we’re family,” she explained. “She’s Puerto Rican and the island is small, so maybe we are somehow related, but it’s kind of remarkable.”
What is Isabella Currently Doing?
On December 14, 2023, Rosario, now 44, confirmed that she’s about to become a grandma, as Isabella is expecting a baby! “It’s very exciting,” she told Page Six during an event, and excitedly said she plans to be a “Glamma.” The baby will reportedly arrive in 2024.
