After a troubling childhood, Tom Hanks‘ daughter E.A. Hanks considers Rita Wilson WAY more than just her stepmom.
While speaking to People about her new memoir on Tuesday, The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road, the actor’s daughter, born Elizabeth Anne, expressed immense gratitude and love for Rita, sharing:
“Rita’s not really a stepmother, she’s my other mother.”
Aw!
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As Perezcious readers know, Tom shared E.A. and son Colin with Susan Dillingham, AKA ’80s actress Samantha Lewes. After the couple split, Susan won primary custody of the children and moved them to Sacramento, meaning they only spent weekends and summers with their father for most of their childhood. Sadly, Susan suffered from mental health issues — which E.A. suspects was undiagnosed bipolar disorder with episodes of extreme paranoia and delusion — and the kids faced alleged abuse and neglect for years, ultimately resulting in E.A. moving back with her father in seventh grade. Susan ultimately passed away from lung cancer in 2002 at age 49.
Throughout this tumultuous time, the Forrest Gump star had moved on and welcomed kids with his current wife (who he began dating a year after his divorce), and E.A. recalls them all just being part of the family:
“When I say my parents, I really mean my dad and Rita, because they’ve been together since before I can really remember. They’ve been together since I was 4 or 5.”
Referencing her stepbrothers Chester “Chet,” 34, and Truman, 29, the writer continued:
“My younger brothers, I don’t think I’ve ever really referred to them as my half brothers, which I guess they technically are. Because Chester was five when I moved to Los Angeles and Truman had just been born … So neither of them remember a time when I didn’t live with them.”
As for their dynamic now, she added:
“I think we’re all kind of in that era of trying to get our own thing going and individuate and all of that, but we’re a posse.”
Sweet! It’s nice they all have each other and that she feels so connected to Rita, especially after all the dark things she faced as a kid!
Thoughts? Let us know (below).
If you have sincere cause to suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org.
[Image via MEGA/Joseph Marzullo/WENN]
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