FILE – Tom Hanks attends the world premiere screening of “Here” during the 2024 AFI Festival at TCL Chinese Theatre on October 25, 2024 in Hollywood, California.
Originally appeared on E! Online
Tom Hanks' only daughter is sharing rare insight into her childhood.
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WATCH HEREE.A. Hanks (short for Elizabeth Anne Hanks) accused her late mother — the Oscar winner's ex-wife Susan Dillingham, who went by the stage name Samantha Lewes — of abuse following the couple’s divorce in the ‘80s.
According to the 42-year-old, the mistreatment allegedly started after Dillingham obtained primary custody of her and brother Colin Hanks, now 47, and abruptly moved them from Los Angeles to Sacramento, Calif. She said the relocation caught Tom Hanks by surprise.
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“My dad came to pick us up from school and we're not there," E.A. Hanks wrote in an excerpt from her book "The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road," published by People. "And it turns out we haven't been there for two weeks and he has to track us down."
“Eventually a divorce agreement was settled, and I would visit my dad and stepmother (and soon enough my younger half brothers) on the weekends and during summers,” she continued, referring to Tom Hank's wife Rita Wilson and their sons Chet Hanks, 34, and Truman Hanks, 29, "but from 5 to 14, years filled with confusion, violence, deprivation, and love, I was a Sacramento girl."
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And what began as a “white house with columns, a backyard with a pool, and a bedroom with pictures of horses plastered on every wall” eventually turned to a home that “stank of smoke,” according to E.A.
"As the years went on, the backyard became so full of dog s--t that you couldn’t walk around it," she recalled. "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. One night, her emotional violence became physical violence."
E.A. Hanks said she lived with her mom until the middle of seventh grade, when her custody arrangement reversed and allowed her to move to Los Angeles while visiting Sacramento over weekends and summers. During her senior year of high school, E.A. Hanks wrote that Dillingham had called her to say she was dying.
Dillingham died at age 49 in 2002 after battling bone cancer.
Tom Hanks has rarely spoken about his divorce. In a 2020 interview, he described it as a "horribly painful time" and talked about the breakup's impact on himself, E.A. and Colin Hanks.
"I couldn't be a worse father and I couldn't be a worse human being," the "Saving Private Ryan" star said on "In Depth with Graham Bensinger." "I think the job as a parent, one of the things I've learned, is to try to guarantee a carefree life for your children for as long as possible. They should not be burdened with the cares of the world until they can handle them."
E! News has reached out to Tom Hanks' rep and has not received comment about E.A. Hanks' memoir.
