Chet Hanks did not have the upbringing he would have wanted. Although he is the son of Tom Hanks, who is widely considered to be “America’s Dad” and one of the kindest people in Hollywood, Chet, 31, claimed that he failed to have a “strong male role model” during his youth. As the son of two celebrity parents – Tom Hanks has been married to his wife Rita Wilson for the last thirty-three years – Chet struggled during his teen years as he tried to come out from under the shadows of his extremely successful parents, both of whom are sixty-five.
Chet is not Hanks and Wilson’s only son. They also have 25-year-old Truman in the family. Nevertheless, Chet, who was recently making headlines for his imitation of a Jamaican accent, believed that his upbringing was extremely flawed. 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 tells his followers about what it was like being raised by celebrity parents. He insisted, “I love my parents” and “wouldn’t want any different parents,” however; he 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 all the people who he said were constantly “s***-talking” as well as the “d***-riders,” who tried to benefit from an association with the son of the celebrities. Nevertheless, Chet did say that his childhood lacked “a strong male role model.”
Chet wished that someone during his childhood could have told him, “‘Hey, bro, f*** 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. You know, I was just the son of somebody famous, so I hadn’t even done anything to deserve any sort of recognition, and 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?