Tom Hanks’ daughter opens up about childhood she says was filled with ‘violence’ at hands of her mother
Tom Hanks’ daughter, EA Hanks, has shared heartbreaking details about her childhood in her upcoming memoir.
The 68-year-old’s daughter, Elizabeth Anne – known as EA – is gearing up for the release of her forthcoming book titled The 10: A Memoir of Family and The Open Road.
The memoir reflects on Elizabeth’s six-month road trip in 2019 on Interstate 10, from Los Angeles to Palatka, Florida. Along the way, she delves deep into her family’s past, including her late mother Susan Dillingham’s troubled legacy and history.
“The stories we tell about where we are from cannot be divided from the stories we tell about who we are,” she penned on Instagram.
While much of the memoir covers her travels and insights, it also exposes the darker corners of her childhood. The book will contain raw and painful memories from the 42-year-old’s early years, which were spent far from the Hollywood spotlight.
“I am a kid from the first (non-famous) marriage,” EA penned in an excerpt published by PEOPLE. “My only memories of my parents in the same place at the same time are Colin’s high school graduation, then my high school graduation. I have one picture of me standing between my parents. In it, my mother’s best wig is slightly askew.”
Dillingham died in 2002 from lung cancer at the age of 49. EA was 19. Though never formally diagnosed, EA believes her mother was bipolar.
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EA claims that after her parents divorced in 1985, she and her brother Colin went to live with their mother in Sacramento, where she says they endured physical abuse and neglect.
From the age of five to 14, EA describes “years filled with confusion, violence, deprivation.” In one passage, she writes: “One night, her emotional violence became physical violence, and in the aftermath I moved to Los Angeles, right smack in the middle of the seventh grade.”
The trauma didn’t stop there as she recounted one frightening moment when her father had to find them after they disappeared from school.
“My dad came to pick us up from school, and we’re not there,” she writes. “And it turns out we haven’t been there for two weeks, and he has to track us down.”
Following his divorce from Dillingham, the Forrest Gump star tied the knot with actress Rita Wilson in 1988. Together, they share two sons, Chet, 34, and Truman, 29.
In a 2019 interview with The New York Times, Hanks reflected on the vastly different upbringings his children experienced.
“My son [Colin] was born when I was very young. As well as my daughter [Elizabeth],” he said. “We have this gestalt understanding because [Colin and Elizabeth] remember when their dad was just a guy trying to, you know, make the rent.”
“My other kids, they were born after I had established a beachhead in every way. And so their lives were just different,” he added.
Last year, Hanks spoke more candidly about parenting during an appearance on the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast.
“I made every mistake,” he said, cited by Daily Mail. “You know, you scar the kids somehow in the same exact way. And as they get older, you come back around and (say), ‘Hey, can I talk about what a knothead I was with you for all those years?’ And (they say), ‘Yeah, sure, dad. Yeah, I’ve been kind of waiting for this. Why don’t you unload.'”
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He also said his four children had taught him “how different they all are. They are not the same type of human being ever”.
The 10: A Memoir of Family And The Open Road by EA Hanks is set to be released on April 8.