Eva Mendes opens up about burying her brother the same week she gave birth

EVA Mendes has opened up for the first time about losing her brother just over a week before giving birth to her and Ryan Gosling’s second baby.

Eva Mendes (with partner Ryan Gosling) has broken her silence on the death of her brother and birth of her second daughter.

EVA Mendes has opened up for the first time about losing her brother to cancer and giving birth to her second daughter with Ryan Gosling less than two weeks later.

The 42-year-old revealed to Latina magazine when her older sibling Carlos died from cancer, it brought her relatives closer together.

Eva Mendes is on the cover of Latina magazine.

“Losing my brother brought our family closer, and we were already close to begin with,” she said.

“So to just see everybody be there for one another and show up, I feel so lucky to have them.”

Mendes, who welcomed daughter Amada Lee in April, had managed to keep her pregnancy secret until just before she gave birth — an impressive feat given her and Gosling’s A-list status.

She says Carlos died on April 17, and Amada was born just 12 days later — so her family farewelled her brother and welcomed her daughter all in the same week.

“They were there for me when Amada was born,” she said.

“We had a funeral service for him (Carlos) and that same week I had the baby.”

The Hitch star went on to explain that in a way, it helped with their grief.

“It was really, really intense and obviously beyond heartbreaking, but also kind of beautiful,” she said.

“And being totally honest, I don’t feel like I’ve really processed that yet.”

Mendes also opened up about why one-year-old Esmerelda Amada and three-month-old Amada Lee share a name, revealing it was her grandmother’s.

“My grandmother’s name is Amada, and Esmeralda Amada is the name of our oldest,” the actress explained.

“We had a few names picked out for our new baby, and when she was born, we didn’t feel like those names were her. We came up with a few more, even that morning, and tried them out. We were like, ‘What about Viviana?’ But we just kept going back to Amada.”