Angel dos Santos Aveiro was the son of Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodríguez. One of twins, he was born on April 18, 2022, and died the same day. His sister, Bella Esmeralda, survived.
His name still circulates online with details that do not hold up, including conflicting birthplaces and photographs that belong to a different child. What can be confirmed is narrower, and most of it comes from the boy’s own parents.
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Cristiano Ronaldo’s son who died at birth
The couple announced in October 2021 that they were expecting twins, a boy and a girl. On April 18, 2022, they shared a joint statement on Instagram saying their baby boy had died, while their daughter had been born healthy.
“It is the greatest pain that any parents can feel,” the statement read. They thanked the doctors and nurses, asked for privacy, and ended with the words that gave the boy his name: “Our baby boy, you are our angel. We will always love you.” The response from football was immediate, with Manchester United and the Premier League among those sending condolences.
Months later, in a November 2022 interview with Piers Morgan on TalkTV, Ronaldo confirmed the name while describing how he and Georgina told their other children that Ángel had gone to Heaven. The grave record matches the announcement. Find a Grave lists his birth and his death on the same date, April 18, 2022.
Why he is confused with Cristiano Ronaldo Jr.
Some of the wrong information traces back to a single photograph. In 2024, a picture went around of one of Ronaldo’s sons in a Manchester United shirt with Alejandro Garnacho’s name on the back, sitting at the table doing homework. A few sites captioned the boy as “Angel dos Santos Aveiro.”
He is not Ángel. He is Cristiano Ronaldo Jr., who was 14 at the time and has trained in the youth academies of Real Madrid, Juventus, Manchester United and Al-Nassr. The photograph was posted on Georgina Rodríguez’s own Instagram, and outlets including Goal named the boy as Cristiano Jr.
The dates rule it out:
- Ángel was born and died on April 18, 2022.
- The homework photograph appeared in 2024.
A baby who died at birth in 2022 could not be photographed in a football kit two years later. Any page that gives Ángel an age, a football career, or a recent picture has either guessed or mistaken him for his older brother.
How his parents have remembered him
Both parents have spoken about Ángel since, openly and on the record.
In her Netflix series I Am Georgina, Rodríguez described the hours after the birth. “Bella was born strong and healthy but a piece of my heart shattered,” she said. She also said she could not face telling her children at first, and let them believe Ángel was still waiting to be born until Ronaldo sat them down and explained.
The same series made public something the couple had kept private. Before this pregnancy, Rodríguez said, she had suffered three miscarriages.
In August 2022, she had a small angel holding a crescent moon tattooed on her left forearm by a Madrid artist, first seen during a trip to Sardinia and then at the Venice Film Festival.
Ronaldo has said he keeps Ángel’s ashes at home, beside those of his own father, José Dinis Aveiro, who died in 2005. He told Piers Morgan it was the hardest thing he had faced since his father’s death, and that holding Bella while grieving her brother left him feeling happy and sad at once, which he had never known before.
Four years on, the couple remain together and announced their engagement in 2025. They have gone on raising their children, among them Bella, the twin who lived. At home, their other children still mention Ángel and point up to the sky when they do.
