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Tom Hanks‘ son Chet Hanks, 31, is getting a lot of attention after admitting he struggled with the fame his 65-year-old dad had while he was growing up, in a new YouTube video. After the actor and musician, whose mother is Rita Wilson, revealed that he didn’t have a “strong male role model” growing up, Tom’s fans immediately came to his defense by sharing comments on social media that included their high opinions of the Forrest Gump star.
Ummm…. Sir, your father was WHOLE Tom Hanks!!! Are you kidding me?? He wasn’t a strong male role model?? 🙄🙄🙄 pic.twitter.com/LVlcsspdxY
— Chrissy O (@chrissy_ceo) February 17, 2022
“Ummm…. Sir, your father was WHOLE Tom Hanks!!! Are you kidding me?? He wasn’t a strong male role model?? 🙄🙄🙄,” one fan wrote on Twitter while another wrote, “My sister is a personal assistant/nanny. One of the people she always talked fondly of was Tom Hanks and how involved he seemed with his children.”
So ‘strong male role models’ equals douchebag in his world?? Because tom hanks is a quality person
— The B (@bridgeyrocks) February 17, 2022
“So ‘strong male role models’ equals douchebag in his world?? Because tom hanks is a quality person,” a third fan shared while a fourth wrote, “OMG. This is just pathetic. No one. No one has a perfect childhood or life without problems. Poor Chet was the son of a famous man.”
The comments came after Chet explained how he felt growing up in his video, and touched upon some positive and “negative” experiences he had because of his relation to a celebrity. After talking about how he felt a lot of people were “intimidated” by him, he revealed he went down “a path of self-destruction” and wished he had someone to give him good advice.
“I didn’t have a strong male role model to tell me that. To tell me, ‘Bro, f*ck these people. They are just jealous of you. You have all these things that they want so they are trying to f*cking throw their shade at you so you can feel sh*tty about yourself because they are jealous’,” he said. “I needed to hear that. I didn’t have anyone to tell me that. This is me now telling the younger version of myself what I needed to hear then.”
“My experience was even more complicated because, on top of fame already being toxic, I wasn’t even famous,” he continued. “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.”
The Northwestern University graduate then went on to talk about how some of his college peers also went through “jealousy” when he started getting recognized for being Tom’s son. “People would make up their minds about me before they even got the chance to know me and it was extremely hard to break down their walls,” he claimed while adding that the experience caused him to have “hostility” toward others. “So, I encountered a lot of disdain, a lot of animosity and negativity. Because everybody was just prepared to hate my guts.”
Despite the struggles, Chet made sure to mention the “advantages” and expressed gratitude for the situation he was born into. “There’s a lot of advantages but sometimes it can be pretty weird. I got to do a lot of cool sh*t that a lot of people don’t get the opportunity to do,” he said. “I got to travel the world, stay in nice hotels, fly on private planes and I’m very blessed for that. I wouldn’t change my situation.”
Check out Chet’s full video above.