Tom Hanks’ daughter reveals childhood of ‘violence and deprivation’ by her mother in shocking tell-all
'One night, her emotional violence became physical violence.'
EA Hanks, the daughter of actor Tom Hanks and his first wife Susan Dillingham, has revealed shocking details about her childhood.
Short for Elizabeth Anne, EA opened up about her turbulent early years which she says were filled with ‘violence’ and ‘deprivation’ by her mother in her upcoming book, The 10: A Memoir of Family and The Open Road.
An account of the six-month road trip she took in 2019 from Los Angeles to Florida, the book follows EA as she seeks to know more about her late mother’s troubled life.
Dillingham died in 2002 from lung cancer at the age of 49. EA was just 19 at the time.
Her now 42-year-old daughter claimed that Dillingham physically abused her and neglected her and her brother, Colin Hanks.
‘I am a kid from the first (non-famous) marriage. 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,’ she wrote in an excerpt published by People.
Elizabeth (far right) has opened up on her upbringing with Hanks’ ex-wife Susan Dillingham (not pictured) (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)‘I have one picture of me standing between my parents. In it, my mother’s best wig is slightly askew.’
After her parents separated in 1985, EA and Colin went to live in Sacramento with her mother, where EA claims her mom physically abused and neglected her children.
From the age of five to 14, EA experienced ‘years filled with confusion, violence, deprivation.’
‘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,’ she wrote.
Hanks went on to remarry Rita Wilson in 1988, while Dillingham moved to Sacramento with their children EA and Colin (Picture: Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty Images)The writer went on to claim that her father once had to track her down after her mother had taken her out of school.
‘My dad came to pick us up from school and we’re not there,’ she said. ‘And it turns out we haven’t been there for two weeks and he has to track us down.’
Forrest Gump star Hanks went on to marry Rita Wilson in 1988 following his split from Dillingham, welcoming children Chet, 34, and Truman, 29.
Hanks addressed the differences in his eldest and youngest children’s upbringings in a 2019 interview with The New York Times, saying: ‘My son [Colin] was born when I was very young. As well as my daughter [Elizabeth].
EA (third right) claims she and brother Colin (second left) experienced ‘violence and deprivation’ at the hands of their mother, who died in 2002 (Picture: Getty)‘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.’
The 10: A Memoir of Family And The Open Road by EA Hanks is released on April 8.
Metro has contacted representatives for Tom Hanks and Colin Hanks for comment
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