Salma Hayek is living her first days as a grandmother — and basking in the sweetness. Her stepson, François Pinault Jr., and his partner, Lara Cosima Henckel von Donnersmarck, welcomed their first child last month, a boy the couple named François, continuing a naming tradition that stretches back four generations in the Pinault family.
Hayek marked the milestone with an Instagram video that’s since melted a corner of the internet.
“I cannot love him more”
In the clip, Hayek is seen holding her grandson close, rocking him gently and laughing as she murmurs to him in Spanish. She paired the video with a caption honoring the family’s lineage: “We are blessed to welcome the fourth living generation of Francois’.” She also added a personal touch, pulled straight from her Mexican roots. “Although I will call him Panchito,” she wrote. “He seems to love it, and I cannot love him more.”
Panchito is a classic Mexican nickname for Francisco, in this case, François, and Hayek’s choice to reach for it is very on-brand. Over the years, Hayek has long folded her heritage into her life, even when she and her daughter Valentina Paloma are the sole Spanish speakers in their home.
Hayek has long been a part of the French family, which carries one of the country’s most famous surnames. François Pinault Jr. is the son of Hayek’s husband, François-Henri Pinault, chairman of Kering. His grandfather is Kering’s founder, François Pinault. Baby François, born to the fourth generation, carries the name of three men before him.
A double surprise from the new parents
The baby announcement itself carried a twist. Lara Cosima shared her own carousel of images from the family’s first weeks together, and her caption revealed that she and François Jr. had married sometime after their engagement and before the birth of their son.
“My husband (the world’s coolest François) and our son (the world’s cutest François)… our first month as parents,” she wrote.
© Zuma Press/The Grosby GroupIt capped off a fast-moving year for the couple. Lara Cosima, a 22-year-old countess and TikTok favorite, announced her engagement to François Jr. in mid-March 2026, roughly a year after they started dating, sharing black-and-white photo-booth snapshots and a formal engagement card alongside the caption: “Got engaged to my best friend and the coolest boy in the world.”
Who is Lara Cosima?
Lara Cosima Henckel von Donnersmarck is the daughter of Count Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, the German film director. She’s no stranger to the spotlight herself: in November 2023, she opened Paris’s storied Bal des Débutantes, waltzing with her father in a Jean Paul Gaultier gown and the Couteulx floral diamond tiara, escorted by Archduke Károly Konstantin von Habsburg.
Three years after that debutante ball, she and François Jr. have gone from red-carpet debutante and dashing heir to husband, wife, and new parents — with baby François’s proud step-grandmother, Salma Hayek, delighting in every bit of it.
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