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“I’d Love To Hear Her Mother’s Side”: Tom Hanks Breaks Silence On Daughter’s Difficult Childhood
Tom Hanks shared his thoughts on his daughter Elizabeth Anne Hanks’ recent memoir, in which she pulled back the curtain on a troubled childhood with disturbing allegations of “emotional violence” and “physical violence.”
The Hollywood icon spoke at the red carpet premiere of his latest film The Phoenician Scheme on Wednesday, May 26, and addressed his daughter’s deeply personal revelations.
Highlights
- Tom Hanks publicly addressed his daughter Elizabeth Anne Hanks' bombshell memoir.
- He said he was “not surprised” by the memoir during the premiere of his film 'The Phoenician Scheme.'
- “She pushed me, shook me, pulled at my hair and locked me in a closet once or twice,” the daughter wrote about her mother Samantha Lewes.
- Samantha was the Hollywood veteran's first wife. They divorced in 1987.
“We all come from checked or cracked lives,” the 68-year-old actor said.
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Tom Hanks publicly addressed daughter E.A. Hanks’ memoir, in which she spoke about her troubled childhood
Image credits: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images
Trigger warning: This article contains mentions of child mistreatment that may be disturbing to some
E.A. (short for Elizabeth Anne) detailed what it was like growing up with Tom as her father and actress Samantha Lewes as her mother in her memoir The 10: A Memoir of Family And The Open Road.
Her mother Samantha’s real name was Susan Dillingham, and she married the Forrest Gump star in January 1978.
In the book released in April, E.A. mentions some of the instances of violence she suffered at the hands of her mother.
Image credits: eahanks
“She pushed me, shook me, pulled at my hair and locked me in a closet once or twice … she told me there were men hiding in her closet who were waiting for us to go to sleep to come out and do horrible things,” E.A. wrote.
Weeks after the revelations came to light, Tom expressed pride in his daughter’s willingness to confront the struggles of her life.
In the memoir, E.A. shares incidents of emotional and physical mistreatment by her late mother, Samantha Lewes
Image credits: madeveart/eahanks
“It’s a pride because, I think, she shares it with me, she’s been very open about what the process is,” he told Access Hollywood at the premiere last week.
“I’m not surprised that my daughter had the wherewithal, as well as the curiosity, as well as, I’m going to say, perhaps, the ‘shoot herself in the foot’ kind of wherewithal in order to examine this thing that I think she was incredibly honest about,” he continued.
“We all come from checked or cracked lives, all of us,” the Oscar winner said
Image credits: Access Hollywood
The Oscar winner added that even though his daughter’s life might have looked perfect on the outside, it was actually much more complicated underneath.
“We all come from checked or cracked lives, all of us, despite the fact that part of it would seem as though she worked for some international well-known firm with a copyrighted last name,” the 68-year-old actor continued.
Image credits: ARNAL/Gamma-Rapho
“She knows that, and she leans into absolutely everything of it, and I think anyone who does that is a bold journalistic literary mind, and I’m thrilled I can say the same thing about my daughter,” added the proud father.
When Tom and Samantha divorced in 1987, the latter got primary custody of E.A. and her older brother Colin.
They were allowed to visit their father on designated weekends and summer visits.
Tom met his first wife Samantha when they were both theater students at California State University in Sacramento
Image credits: Bei/Shutterstock
One day, Samantha moved her two children from Los Angeles to Sacramento without giving her ex-husband Tom any notice.
“My dad came to pick us up from school and we’re not there,” she wrote. “And it turns out we haven’t been there for two weeks and he has to track us down.”
Although Samantha was never diagnosed, E.A. believes her mother had bipolar disorder with episodes of extreme paranoia and delusion.
Image credits: Access Hollywood
The daughter recalled periods of her childhood where she grew up in a neglected house, and her mother wouldn’t even tell her to brush her teeth.
“The backyard became so full of dog s— that you couldn’t walk around it, the house stank of smoke,” she wrote. “The fridge was bare or full of expired food more often than not, and my mother spent more and more time in her big four-poster bed, poring over the Bible.”
Samantha allegedly spoke to her young daughter about her “miscarried babies” and said E.A. would “join them in eternal limbo.”
“I would visit my dad and stepmother … but from 5 to 14, years filled with confusion, violence, deprivation, and love,” she wrote.
E.A. was sent to live with her father after Samantha’s “emotional violence became physical violence”
Image credits: The 92nd Street Y, New York
It was “right smack in the middle of the seventh grade” when E.A. was moved to her father’s house in L.A. after her mother’s “emotional violence became physical violence.”
“My custody arrangement basically switched—now I lived in L.A. and visited Sacramento on the weekends and in the summer,” she penned in her memoir.
Image credits: The 92nd Street Y, New York
Samantha passed away from lung cancer in 2002 when E.A. was about 17 years old.
She stumbled upon her mother’s red journal about a decade after her passing and found it containing “spurts of what would occur to her.”
“I read her description of her father committing this horrible crime,” E.A. recalled in her own memoir.
“The crime she describes is witnessing her father r*pe, m*rder and cannib*lize a little girl,” she added.
E.A. found an entry in her mother’s journal about her father allegedly “committing this horrible crime”
Image credits: The 92nd Street Y, New York
E.A. does not know whether the alleged crime actually took place, but “if any part of the red journal is true,” then her mother “never stood a chance.”
She also explained that her father Tom had his own traumas after his parents divorced.
“My dad was traumatized by his childhood and his family’s divorce and a revolving door of stepparents and -siblings,” E.A. wrote. “The love that existed between my parents is two hurt kids trying to dig out of a well together.”
Image credits: eahanks
Tom met his first wife Samantha when they were both theater students at California State University in Sacramento.
Their whirlwind romance led to the birth of their first son Colin in 1977. They moved into a cockroach-infested apartment in Manhattan in 1978 and tied the knot in 1979.
The couple welcomed daughter E.A. in 1982.
“The love that existed between my parents is two hurt kids trying to dig out of a well together,” E.A. wrote in her memoir
Image credits: The 92nd Street Y, New York
The Big star met his current wife Rita Wilson when she guest-starred in an episode of his sitcom Bosom Buddies back in 1981, and they reconnected on set for the 1985 film Volunteers.
Tom and Samantha separated in 1985, and their divorce was made official in 1987.
The actor was married to Rita by the following year, and they welcomed sons Chester “Chet” and Truman together.
“It must be difficult for Tom Hanks to listen to his daughter recount bad memories of her childhood,” a social media user said
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