Joaquin Phoenix has sparked rumours he has secretly married his long-term love Rooney Mara.

The ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ Oscar-winner, 49, has been publicly dating the actress, 39, since 2017 after they first met five years earlier on set of the movie ‘Her’ – and has now referred to her as his “wife”.

He made the remark while discussing his 2020 Oscars acceptance speech during a podcast appearance on ‘Talk Easy’ with Sam Fragoso.

Joaquin said he found the inspiration for the speech while he “was talking with my mom and my wife”.

The actor then moments later referred to Rooney by her first name as he retold how he came up with his speech – saying: “Rooney was like, ‘That’s what you should say!’”

Joaquin did not go on to confirm whether he and Rooney had married.

The actors got engaged in 2019 and are parents to son River, who they had in 2020 and who’s named after Joaquin’s late brother who died from a drug overdose in 1993 aged 23.

They are now expecting a second child.

The pair have spent years being fiercely private about their relationship and home life.

But Joaquin has opened up about how he thought Rooney wasn’t a fan of his when they first met.

He told Vanity Fair in 2019 about later learning she was only shy: “She’s the only girl I ever looked up on the Internet.

“We were just friends, e-mail friends. I’d never done that – never looked up a girl online.”

Joaquin and Rooney did also open up about their son in 2020 op-ed written for People about migrant children who had been separated from their parents at the US–Mexico border.

They said as “new parents” they found it “unbearable to imagine what it would feel like to have our child taken away from us for a day, let alone years”.

They have also shared some insights into their parenting journey, with Joaquin saying he hopes his son grows up to be vegan.