Tom Hanks' daughter admits childhood was filled with 'confusion and violence' following parents' divorce
The daughter of Tom Hanks has revealed she had a turbulent relationship with her mother while growing up following the divorce of her parents.
Before his marriage to Sleepless in Seattle actor Rita Wilson, Hanks was married to former actress Samantha Lewes between 1978 and 1987. The couple would go on to have two children together - Elizabeth Ann 'E.A.' Hanks, born 1982, and Colin, born 1977.
E.A. has now opened up on her childhood in upcoming memoir The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road, revealing that her childhood became increasingly difficult after her parents divorced and she went to live with her mother.
In an excerpt of the book revealed to PEOPLE, E.A. explained how she had 'few memories of the early years in Los Angeles' before her parents' divorce.
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Lewes would initially get primary custody of the two children, however, this situation flipped once the children reached their teenage years.
After the separation, Lewes would move the family to Sacramento, which is around six hours away from LA.
"Eventually a divorce agreement was settled, and I would visit my dad and stepmother (and soon enough my younger half brothers) on the weekends and during summers," she explained.
"But from 5 to 14, years filled with confusion, violence, deprivation, and love, I was a Sacramento girl. I lived in a white house with columns, a backyard with a pool, and a bedroom with pictures of horses plastered on every wall."
However, E.A.'s relationship with her mother would deteriorate other the years as Lewes began to struggle with mental health issues.
"The backyard became so full of dog s**t that you couldn’t walk around it, the house stank of smoke," E.A. explained. "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."
Another passage recalled the moment things came to a head, with an act of 'physical violence' leading to the now 42-year-old packing up and returning to live with her dad.
"One night, her emotional violence became physical violence, and in the aftermath, I moved to Los Angeles, right smack in the middle of the seventh grade," she wrote, adding that her parents' custody arrangement basically switching from there on.
Lewes would later pass away from lung cancer on 12 March, 2002. E.A. was 19 at the time while her brother was 24.
E.A also recalled the moment she discovered her mother was terminally ill in the memoir, revealing that it came via a phone call: "My senior year of high school, she called to say she was dying."
The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road” by E.A. Hanks is out April 8.
Brenna Cooper