UPDATE (3/27/20, 9:40 P.M. ET): Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson have finally returned to Los Angeles! After quarantining in Australia, the couple was pictured with big smiles while driving their Range Rover in LA on March 27. They had just landed at Van Nuys Airport, according to TMZ, which obtained photos of their arrival. Tom had just confirmed that he and his wife “feel better” two weeks after their “first symptoms” for COVID-19 appeared in a tweet shared on March 22.
UPDATE (3/17/20, 7:10 P.M. ET): More good news! On March 17 — a week after Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson tested positive for the new coronavirus — Tom took to Twitter and announced, “Hey folks. Good News: One week after testing Positive, in self-isolation, the symptoms are much the same. No fever but the blahs. Folding the laundry and doing the dishes lead to a nap on the couch. Bad news: My wife has won 6 straight hands of Gin Rummy and leads by 201 points. But I have learned not to spread my Vegemite so thick. I travelled here with a typewriter, one I used to love. We are all in this together. Flatten the curve. Hanx.”
ORIGINAL: Tom Hanks, 63, has just shared the first photo of himself and wife Rita Wilson, also 63, since their dramatic March 11 announcement that they had been diagnosed with the coronavirus. While they both looked tired and donned baseball caps in the Instagram pic, Rita was able to muster up a smile as the pair are in containment. They got the news while in Australia, where Tom is doing pre-production on his new film. He became the first major celebrity to get COVID-19, and being one of America’s most beloved movie icons, it shook Tom’s fans and celebrity pals to the core.
Next to the March 12 Instagram photo of himself and Rita, Tom wrote, “Hello folks. @ritawilson and I want to thank everyone here Down Under who are taking such good care of us. We have Covid-19 and are in isolation so we do not spread it to anyone else. There are those for whom it could lead to a very serious illness. We are taking it one-day-at-a-time.”
He continued, “There are things we can all do to get through this by following the advice of experts and taking care of ourselves and each other, no? Remember, despite all the current events, there is no crying in baseball. Hanx.” Tom made the “there is no crying in baseball” line iconic when he delivered in the 1992 women’s WWII baseball league movie A League of Their Own.
Tom delivered the news to fans that he and Rita had contracted the coronavirus via a March 11 Instagram post. “Hello, folks. @ritawilson and I are down here in Australia. We felt a bit tired, like we had colds, and some body aches. Rita had some chills that came and went. Slight fevers too. To play things right, as is needed in the world right now, we were tested for the Coronavirus, and were found to be positive,” he wrote next to a photo of a garbage can with a rubber glove on it.
“Well, now. What to do next? The Medical Officials have protocols that must be followed. We Hanks’ will be tested, observed, and isolated for as long as public health and safety requires. Not much more to it than a one-day-at-a-time approach, no? We’ll keep the world posted and updated. Take care of yourselves! Hanx!” he concluded.
After Tom broke the news, his son Chet, 29, shared an Instagram video to assure everyone his parents were okay. “I just got off the phone with them. They are both fine. They’re not even that sick. They’re not worried about it, they’re not trippin’. But they’re going through the necessary health precautions. I don’t think it’s anything to be too worried about. I appreciate everyone’s concern and well wishes, but I think it’s all going to be alright,” he explained.