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Celebrity

06th Apr 2025

Tom Hanks’ daughter says her childhood was ‘filled with violence’

Ava Keady

The revelations come from her new tell-all book.

Tom Hanks’ daughter has said her childhood was ‘filled with violence’.

Elizabeth Ann Hanks has claimed her childhood was one filled with emotional and physical violence at the hands of her late mother.

The revelations come from her new tell-all memoir entitled The 10: A Memoir of Family And The Open Road.

In an excerpt from the book shared with PEOPLE, Elizabeth Ann alleges that she and her brother, Colin Hanks, were neglected and emotionally abused by their mother whilst living in Sacramento.

She claims that when she was in the 7th grade ‘one night, her emotional violence became physical violence’ and she moved to Los Angeles soon after.

In her memoir, Elizabeth Ann goes on a six-month road trip from Los Angeles to Palatka, Florida, where the family of her mother once lived, in hope to learn more about her mother, who she believes had undiagnosed bipolar disorder.

An excerpt from the upcoming memoir, set to be released on Tuesday, April 8, reads: “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. My custody arrangement basically switched — now I lived in L.A. and visited Sacramento on the weekends and in the summer.

“When I was 14, my mother and I drove across America along Interstate 10 to Florida, in a Winnebago that lumbered along the asphalt with a rolling gait that felt nautical.

“My senior year of high school, she called to say she was dying.”

Prior to Hanks finding fame in Hollywood, in 1978 the 68-year-old actor married Susan Dillingham (whose stage name was Samantha Lewes).

The couple had two children together, Elizabeth Ann and Colin.

They split up in 1987 and Susan got primary custody of the children.

The Forest Gump star went on to marry and welcome two children with Rita Wilson, seeing Elizabeth Ann and Colin on the weekends.

However, this changed when Susan moved them from Los Angeles to Sacramento without informing him.

Susan passed away in 2002 from lung cancer.

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tom hanks