Tom Hanks's daughter opens up on abuse and broken home
What's the story
Elizabeth Hanks, daughter of Tom Hanks and his first wife-actor Samantha Lewes, has opened up about her childhood in an upcoming memoir, The 10.
In an excerpt obtained by People, she writes about how her parents' divorce in 1985 shaped her and her brother Colin's lives.
"I'm a kid from the First (non-famous) Marriage," she goes on to write, revealing that she has memories of her parents only at her and her brother's high school graduations.
Post-divorce life
Hanks's life after parents' divorce
Hanks, who goes by EA Hanks now, was born in Burbank and moved to Sacramento with her mother following the divorce.
She described her childhood in Sacramento as "years filled with confusion, violence, deprivation, and love."
"Eventually, a divorce agreement was settled, and I would visit my dad and stepmother on the weekends and during summers, but from 5 to 14 years filled with confusion, violence, deprivation, and love, I was a Sacramento girl," she wrote.
Mental health struggles
Her mother's declining mental health finds mention
Hanks also revealed her mother's declining mental health and its effect on their living conditions.
"The backyard became so full of dog s**t that you couldn't walk around it, and the house stank of smoke. 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."
This resulted in a major shift in their custody arrangement.
Family dynamics
Hanks's relationship with her mother and father's remarriage
The 42-year-old author detailed an important moment when her mother's emotional violence became physical, forcing her to move to Los Angeles in the seventh grade.
She only returned to Sacramento on weekends and summers after that.
Hanks's mother passed away due to lung cancer in 2002. Speaking to People, Hanks said she suspected Lewes lived with undiagnosed bipolar disorder.
Meanwhile, Tom married actor Rita Wilson in 1988, with whom he has two sons, Chet and Truman.
Road trip
Here's how Lewes met Tom
Lewes met the Toy Story actor in the 1970s at theater school. They had a son in 1977, got married, and later welcomed a daughter before eventually divorcing.
In 2019, Hanks took a six-month road trip from Los Angeles to Palatka, Florida, where her mother once lived. This trip sparked her memoir, enabling her to explore her mother's life more.
The 10: A Memoir of Family And The Open Road will be released on April 8.