All About Freddie and Cleopatra

Christina Ricci’s life has evolved, both professionally and personally, including becoming a mother to her two kids: Freddie and Cleopatra.

The Yellowjackets star welcomed her son in 2014 with her ex-husband, camera and lighting technician James Heerdegen. The actress remarried in October 2021 to hairstylist Mark Hampton and welcomed their daughter two months later.

Ricci previously credited marriage and motherhood for keeping her grounded during a January 2017 interview with PEOPLE.

“I didn’t realize how much growing up I had to do and how much better I could be. And my marriage and my kid have really made me better,” she said.

Ricci continued, adding how she prioritized spending time with her son when she wasn’t working, “Usually when I’m off, I’m with my son. When I’m not working, I try to be as full-time with him as I can be. Taking him to his play dates and nursery school.”

A few months later, in March 2017, Ricci opened up to The Edit and reflected on how being a wife and mom affected her as an individual.

“Marriage shows you your flaws in how you deal with things, and having a child forces you to grow up at the speed of light,” she told Net-a-Porter’s digital magazine. “I’m a completely different person than I was before I had my child.”

Here’s everything to know about Christina Ricci’s kids: Freddie and Cleopatra.

Freddie Heerdegen, 9

Ricci and Heerdegen welcomed their first and only child together, son Freddie, in August 2014.

The Addams Family star told PEOPLE in March 2016 that having her son “changed everything.”

She explained, “It’s made everything in my life actually important and matter. I now have to take things seriously, and I never did before. I want to succeed for him. My choices matter more.”

Prior to the birth of her daughter years later, Ricci seldom shared photos of her son on social media. However, in recent years, she’s documented several of their mother-son trips together, including a spring break trip to Disneyland in March 2023.

Three months later, she also shared pictures from the duo’s trip to New York City, like a snap of Freddie riding the subway and another photo of the two posing in front of the Statue of Liberty.

Ricci, who was only 9 years old when she made her film debut in Mermaids alongside Cher and Winona Ryder, started explaining her career as an actress to her son when he was young.

In July 2018, she told PEOPLE about Freddie coming home from preschool when he was about 3 years old and asking, “‘Mama, are you a movie actress?’ ”

“I didn’t say that to him. People mention it to him … I have to then explain to him what it is, and we’ve shown him movies,” she said.

Still, he wasn’t originally interested in seeing movies where Ricci didn’t look like herself, so he started making requests. “We showed him Casper and then we realized he hadn’t developed that ability to discern reality from fiction,” she explained.

As Freddie’s grown older, he’s continued to be supportive of his mom’s career. In September 2022, he and his younger sister celebrated their mom’s Emmy nomination for best supporting actress in a drama series. (Julia Garner took home the win.)

After the event, Ricci shared a photograph on her Instagram Stories of the brother-sister duo sitting under a banner that read, “Congrats on Best Mom.”

She has also been open about how she is raising her children and the values she’s instilling in them. During a December 2022 interview with The Guardian, Ricci said Freddie “won’t be able to avoid” being progressive.

“My husband, Mark, is, I hate to say it because it sounds really obnoxious, a feminist,” she said. “And Freddie is going to see that, and see his working mother. I think he’ll see women in a much more layered, complicated way, just by having grown up watching his mom do all this stuff.”

As for whether her son will follow in her footsteps as a child actor, she told the New York Post in February 2019 that it’s unlikely.

“Once he’s an adult, and he studies, and he understands that it’s an art form, then he can pursue an acting career if he’d like,” she told the outlet.

Cleopatra Ricci Hampton, 2

Ricci and Hampton welcomed their daughter, Cleopatra, in December 2021.

The actress initially announced her pregnancy on social media, sharing a photo of an ultrasound image alongside the caption, “Life keeps getting better.”

In the months that followed, Ricci showed off her baby bump on several occasions, including on the red carpet alongside Hampton at the Los Angeles premiere of Yellowjackets and in a campaign for Marc Jacobs.

Cleopatra was not originally meant to be Ricci’s daughter’s full name. During an interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, the actress revealed that before she gave birth via cesarean section, she and Hampton had agreed to call their daughter Cleo.

“My husband was like, ‘Well, we’re going to give her a full name, right? And the nickname is Cleo?’ And I was like, ‘Cleopatra?’ ” she told host Ellen DeGeneres. “And he was like, ‘Yeah, the full name’s Cleopatra.’ And I was sort of like, ‘Fine, whatever. We’ll talk about this later.’ ”

Ricci added, “He got so excited he put it on Instagram, and media outlets picked up that her name was Cleopatra Ricci Hampton, and I was like, ‘Oh, I guess her name’s Cleopatra.’ ”

When Cleopatra was an infant, Ricci had an easier time in certain aspects than when Freddie was a baby. Speaking with PEOPLE in September 2022, the actress considered her then 9-month-old daughter being sleep-trained a “miracle.”

“The fact that I can put her down in her crib and she just goes to sleep when my 8-year-old still sleeps with me is amazing,” Ricci said.

However, when Cleopatra was teething, it was a different story. She told Entertainment Tonight Canada in July 2022 that she didn’t learn of her Emmy nomination for the Showtime series until much later because her daughter was “teething really badly all last night,” which disrupted her sleep.

“I didn’t actually get to sleep really until 5 in the morning,” Ricci recalled. “I overslept and my husband tried to wake me up at 8:40 to let me know I’d been nominated, but I chose to keep sleeping and then woke up later to like crazy amounts of texts and calls.”

Ricci and Hampton have shared several adorable moments of their daughter on social media since she was born, like a hilarious post from the hairstylist testing out silly Instagram filters.

The actress also posted a sweet snap of her mini-me to mark her first birthday. Ricci called Cleopatra her “little dream baby,” writing, “She’s a gift from the universe. Broke our hearts open wide again.”