Chet Hanks, the son of celebrity couple Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks, is claiming that there’s more to the “America’s Dad” title his Oscar-winning father has been lovingly bestowed.
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In a new video on his YouTube page, Chet, now 31, explains that he feels he had no one to turn to while growing up as a celebrity child, with others seeing him as "arrogant, entitled, and spoiled."
"I didn’t have a strong male role model to tell me … 'Bro, f*** these people. They are just jealous of you… You have all these things that they want, so they are trying to f***ing throw their shade at you so you can feel s***ty about yourself because they are jealous.' I needed to hear that," he adds. "I didn’t have anyone to tell me that. This is me now telling the younger version of myself what I needed to hear then."
Chet, known for his "White Boy Summer" single, and social media hot takes, also says he found it "extremely hard" to break people's expectations. "So, I encountered a lot of disdain, a lot of animosity and negativity because everybody was just prepared to hate my guts," he said.
While saying it can be "pretty weird," he does recognize his upbringing came with many advantages. "I got to do a lot of cool s*** that a lot of people don’t get the opportunity to do,” Chet admits. "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." However, he says his experience was "complicated because, on top of fame already being toxic, I wasn’t even famous," he says. "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."
Hanks, Chet not Tom, signed to Soulja Boy's SODMG Records in mid-2021, so let's just assume this is part of the media machine leading up to a new release.
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