Tom Hanks’ Son Speaks Out About His Unhappy Childhood

Chet Hanks did not have the upbringing he would have wanted. Despite being the son of Tom Hanks, often considered “America’s Dad” and one of Hollywood’s kindest figures, Chet, 31, claimed he lacked a “strong male role model” during his youth. Growing up as the son of two celebrity parents—Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson, who have been married for thirty-three years—Chet struggled during his teen years to emerge from the shadows of his immensely successful parents, both of whom are sixty-five.

Chet is not Hanks and Wilson’s only son; they also have a 25-year-old son, Truman. Nevertheless, Chet, who recently made headlines for his imitation of a Jamaican accent, believed his upbringing was deeply flawed. Tom Hanks also has two other children from a previous relationship—43-year-old Colin and 38-year-old Elizabeth Ann.

In a YouTube video, Chet Hanks shared with his followers what it was like growing up with celebrity parents. He insisted, “I love my parents” and “wouldn’t want any different parents,” but admitted that being raised by Hanks and Wilson was “a double-edged sword.”

Chet confessed that many people hold “contempt” for him because he is Tom Hanks’s son. He also found it challenging to navigate through the people who were constantly “trash-talking” him and the “hangers-on” who tried to benefit from their association with him. Despite these challenges, Chet emphasized that his childhood lacked “a strong male role model.”

Chet wished that someone during his childhood could have reassured him, saying, “‘Hey, bro, forget these people. They are just jealous of you.’”

He added, “My experience was even more complicated because, on top of fame already being toxic, I wasn’t even famous. I was just the son of someone famous, so I hadn’t done anything to deserve any sort of recognition. That created a lot of contempt, a lot of contempt for me.”

Chet said his father was “on this pedestal” all his life, and people had “assumed” that Chet was “a really arrogant, entitled spoiled brat even though I really wasn’t.”

As a teenager, “people would make up their minds about me before they even got a chance to know me, and it was extremely hard to break down their walls, so I encountered a lot of disdain, a lot of animosity, a lot of negativity because everybody was just prepared to hate my guts.”

Although Chet was critical of Tom Hanks’s parenting style – or lack of parenting – fans defended the famous actor on social media.

“There’s literally nothing you can say, Chet, that will ever make me believe Thomas Jeffrey Hanks, by way of Oakland California didn’t do the absolute best job he could with you given the outcome.”

Another Twitter user wrote, “Tom Hanks has another son from his first marriage. He’s fine and well-adjusted. Wonder what this one’s problem is, considering parents are still together and not divorced. Just a spoiled and entitled brat.”

What do you think about Chet Hanks’s criticism of his father?