Tom Hanks Speaks Out as Daughter E.A. Hanks Reveals Family Secrets and Childhood Trauma

“We all come from checkered, cracked lives, all of us.” That’s what Tom Hanks delivered on the red carpet in the form of a truth bomb, and it’s really hard to picture a more universal admission even coming from Hollywood royalty. But for enthusiasts who’ve observed the Hanks clan over the years, the new revelations in E.A. Hanks’s memoir, The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road, have flipped that near and dear story on its head.

E.A. Elizabeth Anne doesn’t shy away in her book. She bares all a childhood of instability, chaos, and what she refers to as both verbal and physical abuse at the hands of her mother, Susan Dillingham. The specifics are unvarnished: a home “full of dog s—,” a refrigerator that was “bare or full of rotten food,” and a mother who spent days in bed with only the Bible to keep her company. In one of the most devastating paragraphs, E.A. describes, “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”.

More haunting still is E.A.’s fear that her mother was suffering with undiagnosed bipolar disorder, marked by fits of paranoia and delusion. There were sobbing midnight rants about “the devil’s work” of yoga, outrageous accusations that Tom was wiretapping the phone, and even guns hidden in the living room sewing box (Sydney Morning Herald). For those who have ever asked how families survive when mental illness is left untreated, E.A.’s life is a harsh reminder: the silence and bewilderment can inform a child’s whole sense of self.

The memoir also goes back to the Hanks–Dillingham divorce, which Tom himself described as horribly painful, fraught with emotion and bad feelings and the failures that you go, ‘Oh, I couldn’t be a worse father, and I couldn’t be a worse human being’. Following the breakup, Susan received primary custody of both E.A. and older brother Colin. But things soon became strange: Susan up and moved the children from Sacramento to Los Angeles one day without informing Tom. My dad came to pick us up from school and we’re not there, remembers E.A. And it turns out we haven’t been there for two weeks and he has to track us down.

The sudden uprooting, the uncertainty, and the emotional damage are all too common for anyone who’s survived a high-conflict custody fight. For E.A., it translated to living from city to city, house to house, and mood to mood until the final, violent confrontation drove her out of her mom’s home for good when she was 14.

Tom Hanks’s reaction? A dash of pride, some empathy, and a pinch of that trademark Hanks humility. “I’m not surprised that my daughter had the wherewithal as well as the curiosity to examine this thing that I think she was incredibly honest about,” he said to Access Hollywood. “She’s a knockout, always has been. If you’ve had kids, you realize that you see who they are when they’re about 6 weeks old”. For Tom, being a parent has become a philosophy of acceptance and love without conditions: You offer up that to them. ‘I will do anything I can possibly do in order to keep you safe.’ That’s it. Offer that up and then just love them.

This isn’t the first celebrity memoir that has pulled back the curtain on family secrets, but E.A.’s candor and Tom’s grace in meeting it feels new. It’s not a matter of pointing fingers or getting revenge. It’s about making sense of hurt, closing chapters, and writing your own book. For families struggling with untreated mental illness, E.A.’s book is a strong reminder that healing begins with naming the pain even when it gets messy, complicated, and public.

Experts indicate that when a parent’s psychological problems are left untreated, children tend to create their own ways of dealing with things sometimes positive, sometimes negative. In the case of E.A., she speaks of “excoriation disorder,” a long-standing skin-picking behavior that continued into adulthood. Family therapists suggest open communication, professional counseling, and, where feasible, including children in therapy so that they can make sense of what’s occurring within the household. But as the tale of E.A. illustrates, occasionally the only direction to proceed is to step away, glance over one’s shoulder, and attempt to comprehend the parent who molded you defects, suffering, and all.

Other celebrity families have faced similar reckonings. From Jennette McCurdy’s searing account of her mother’s control in “I’m Glad My Mom Died” to Drew Barrymore’s revelations about her tumultuous childhood, public reactions can range from support to skepticism. What stands out in the Hanks family’s case is the absence of denial or defensiveness. Tom’s approach acknowledging the messiness, celebrating his daughter’s courage, and reaffirming his love offers a blueprint for how families might weather these storms together.

Susan Dillingham died in 2002 after a struggle with lung cancer, and her daughter is still trying to untangle the legacy she left behind. E.A.’s trip along the “10” highway, reliving a rare lucid road trip with her mother, is a metaphor for the long, circuitous journey to knowledge and acceptance. As she puts it, “the stories we tell about the places we’re from become part of the stories we tell about who we are”.

For fans of celebrity news and followers of Tom Hanks, this memoir is more than just another Hollywood tell-all. It’s an insider’s glimpse into the actual, un-sanitized struggles behind the scenes and a reminder that even the most iconic families have their secrets, scars, and, on occasion, their own hard-won healing.