Chet Hanks On Growing Up as Tom Hanks’ Son Amid “Toxic” Fame: Everybody Was Prepared To Hate My Guts

February 16, 2022 by Monique Nicole in Film with 0 Comments

Chet Hanks On Growing Up as Tom Hanks’ Son Amid “Toxic” Fame: Everybody Was Prepared To Hate My Guts

Chet Hanks is getting very candid and not holding back about growing up as a celebrity kid!

In a YouTube video uploaded Tuesday (Feb. 15), the 31-year-old actor is opening up for the first time about the struggles he faced growing up with famous parents–actors Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson! While he humbly acknowledged the benefits and admitted he grew up very “blessed” with parents he loves, the unique experience was a “double-edged sword.”

“There’s a lot of advantages but sometimes it can be pretty weird…I got to do a lot of cool s**t that a lot of people don’t get the opportunity to do. 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. I love my parents.”

Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson

He goes on to explain that people are infatuated with fame and how that can bring more harm than good.

“You’ve got to keep in mind that fame is the most powerful drug known to man. It can also be the most destructive. People are infatuated with fame. They put famous people on a pedestal. Everybody wants to be famous. It creates a lot of jealousy, a lot of envy. Everyone is doing whatever they can to become famous.”

Chet continued,

“We think that it’s going to validate us, and I’ve been guilty of that, too. But the truth is that seeking validation from fame and from others only amplifies your misery. True validation can only come from within yourself.”

Chet Hanks

Chet Hanks reveals that at times it was weird for him to accept the benefits of fame because in his eyes, he had done nothing to deserve it. His father, Tom Hanks was the famous one, not Chet.

“My experience was even more complicated because on top of fame already being toxic, I wasn’t even famous. 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.”

Chet says that when he was in High school and college things got harder for him due to his peers judging him and treating him differently.

“People would make up their minds about me before they even got a chance to know me, and it was extremely hard to break down their wall, so I encountered a lot of disdain, a lot of animosity, a lot of negativity because everybody was just prepared to hate my guts.”

He continued,

“That caused me to develop a chip on my shoulder and walk around with a lot of anger and it led me to create this hard exterior so that people wouldn’t f–k with me because people really did kind of f–k with me a lot growing up.”

Chet says he’s now on a new journey and just working on being a better person and has taken a break from partying and drug use.

“I’ve changed my life. I no longer have gone down that self-destructive road of dealing with my anger and resentment by self-destructing, by pleasure-seeking through partying, drugs, alcohol, substances, everything. Now I’m just focusing on doing the work and being the best me that I could be.”

What are your thoughts on Chet Hanks Video? Let us know in the comments below!

[VIA]