Chet Hanks Opens Up About ‘Destructive’ Fame
By Movieguide® Staff
Chet Hanks, son of acclaimed Hollywood actor Tom Hanks, recently opened up about what it’s like to be the child of a celebrity.
In a new video on YouTube, Hanks talked about the “double-edged sword” of his father’s celebrity status.
“It’s a lot more complicated and not so many people really understand it,” Hanks shared. “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,” he continued. “It creates a lot of jealousy, a lot of envy. Everyone is doing whatever they can to become famous. 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.”
Hanks praised his parents for how they handled him and his brothers’ upbringing and for not spoiling them. If they wanted pocket money, they had to earn it.
But Hanks confessed that many people had assumptions about his character before they ever had a conversation.
“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,” Hanks said. “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.”
Hanks has outgrown that anger, though, and said he is on a new journey.
“I’ve changed my life,” he shared. “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.”
Hanks previously said that he had a radical encounter with God that changed his life.
Movieguide® previously reported:
Chet said that as an atheist, he was at a point in his life where he was very angry and very resentful before he went to a wilderness camp.
One morning, the counselors woke him up and took him on a hike. What he saw on the hike changed his life.
“I went off and sat on the edge of this cliff and was just looking out at the view,” Chet said.
“As I was looking out at that view and I was looking at where I had been from an elevated perspective — because I’d been stuck in this desert for 12 weeks and it just looked ugly and boring, and there’s nothing to look at. But now I’m looking at it from an elevated perspective of the top of this mountain.”
The new perspective started to creep into his heart.
“So I’m looking around, and I’m so overcome by emotion. It felt like I was touched by the hand of God. It was at that moment God revealed Himself to me,” he said. “All that anger, and that hate, and that resentment flipped. It inverted to just infinite hope, gratitude, peace, love.”
Chet began to weep.
“It just flipped on a dime, like that. And I was so overcome by emotion, I just sat at the edge of that cliff and I wept. I wept for an hour, uncontrollable weeping for like an hour. It did not cease, but tears of joy. Tears of everything, feeling every emotion at once, all the pain and all the joy.”
Chet said that the drugs he’d tried up until that point didn’t even come close to the way God made him feel.
“That was the birth of my spiritual life,” he said. “I knew there is something else out there, OK? There is a higher power, there is higher intelligence because it felt like it had just tapped me on the shoulder.”
Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.
What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.
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Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.
Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.
What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.
You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.
Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.
