Meet Nicolas Cage’s young Japanese wife and Oscars date, Riko Shibata: the film extra met the Pig actor through a friend, got proposed to on FaceTime, and gave birth to their daughter August in 2022
Where did Nicolas Cage and Riko Shibata meet?
Shibata is credited simply as “mannequin woman” in Cage’s 2021 movie Prisoners of Ghostland. The high-concept film is about a notorious criminal who “must break an evil curse in order to rescue an abducted girl who has mysteriously disappeared”, according to the IMDB synopsis.
Cage reportedly met Shibata through a mutual friend in her home country of Japan, though it’s not known whether they met for the first time on the set. They were first pictured together in February 2020 when he took her to the site of a tomb in New Orleans in the US that he’d bought for himself 10 years before. Then they went public, when she appeared on the red carpet for his film Pig in July 2021, and even made the cover of Flaunt Magazine in October.
Things must’ve moved quickly for the actors as Cage only married his fourth wife Erika Koike in March 2019. However, Cage and Koike filed for annulment four days after the nuptials and the divorce was finalised a few months later.
Cage popped the question on a video call
“We’re really happy together and we’re really excited to spend that time together, so I finally just said, ‘Look, I wanna marry you,’ and we got engaged on FaceTime,” Cage admitted. Still, the Hollywood high roller did fork out for a stunning black diamond engagement ring and had it FedExed to her.
Married in Vegas … again
The couple planned on getting hitched in Kyoto, but in the end said “I do” during a ceremony at the Wynn Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas on February 16, 2021. Shibata did, however, wear a handmade, three-layer Japanese bridal kimono from Kyoto, while a representative said the date was chosen to honour the birthday of Cage’s late father. She walked down the aisle to “Winter Song” by Hiroro, according to numerous media reports at the time, and the pair made both Catholic and Shinto vows, plus recited poems from Walt Whitman and a haiku.
There were no hard feelings on the part of his ex Kim, it seems. His ex-wife of 12 years – who was a waitress in Los Angeles when she met Cage, and who married him soon after, in 2004 – joined the couple for a small celebration after the nuptials. Their 16-year-old son Kal-El Coppola Cage was also there. However, Weston Coppola Cage, the actor’s 31-year-old son from his relationship with actress Christina Fulton, did not join the celebration.
They have a daughter together
The couple welcomed their first child, a baby girl named August Francesca Coppola Cage, together in September 2022.
Cage also has two sons from his previous relationships: one with actress Christina Fulton, son Weston Coppola Cage, 33; and the aforementioned Kal-El Coppola Cage, 18, with ex-wife Kim.
In a 2022 interview with Kelly Clarkson, Cage expressed his delight at becoming a girl dad for the first time, saying, “It’s gonna be the biggest adventure of my life.”
- Veteran Hollywood actor Nicolas Cage, 60, and his Japanese wife Riko Shibata, 28, are clearly still going strong after they were pictured holding hands on the Oscars red carpet last week
- Shibata is the Pig star’s fifth wife after Patricia Arquette, Lisa Marie Presley, Alice Kim and Erika Koike, and gave Cage his first daughter, August, in September 2022