Inside Chet Hanks’ MANY controversies: From his Jamaican accent to cocaine addiction and abuse allegations – a look back at the wild life of Tom Hanks’ troubled son
He is the son of one of Hollywood’s most beloved and respected actors, Tom Hanks.
But unlike his superstar father, 66, Chet Hanks, 32 – born Chester Marlon Hanks – has had a rather rocky road to fame, plagued by a number of scandals.
From speaking in a Jamaican accent, to domestic violence allegations, celebrating ‘white boy summer’ and a cocaine drug addiction – Chet is known for stirring up controversy.
And though his brother Truman, 27 – who Tom shares with actress wife Rita Wilson, 66 – and half-siblings Colin, 45, and Elizabeth Ann, 40, all work in the entertainment industry, it’s the aspiring rapper whose name ends up in the news most often.
As Hanks’ troubled son continues to stay in the headlines – most recently for slamming Eric Andre, after the comedian branded him ‘dangerous and emotionally disturbed’ – DailyMail.com looks back at his numerous controversies.
Chet’s scandals: Unlike his famous father Tom Hanks, 66, and actress mother Rita Wilson, 66, Chet Hanks, 32, has had a rather rocky road to fame, plagued by a number of scandals; Pictured with Tom and Rita in 2011
CHET FEUDS WITH ERIC ANDRE AND CALLS HIM A ‘P***Y’
War of words: Most recently Chet (L) lashed out at Eric Andre (R) for calling him ‘dangerous and emotionally disturbed’ when he guest-starred on the comedian’s show
Direct hit: An incensed Chet, who has previously battled drug addiction, took to Instagram to hit back at ‘p***y’ Andre, claimed he ‘outshone’ the star on his show and he was ‘easily scared’
Fuming: Andre then sensationally hit back at Hanks, calling him a ‘liar’ and urging him to ‘ take a DNA test’
The musician’s latest scandal has been a feud with Eric Andre, after he recently guest-starred on the comedian’s show.
Andre, 39, called him ‘dangerous and emotionally disturbed.’ The feud erupted between the two when the funnyman said the actor was ‘not well’ and ‘stole a motorcycle’ while filming The Eric Andre show in an explosive interview with Rolling Stone.
Andre said: ‘Chet Hanks, on the other hand, was a tough cookie. He broke our crew. It felt like Rust. He broke us down.
‘He is… emotionally disturbed. He stole a motorcycle and rode it around. He almost knocked a bunch of grips and gaffers off their ladders. It was very dangerous. He tried to prank us back, but we edited out all his bulls***! He’s not well. How did Colin Hanks come out so good and Chet Hanks come out so bad?’
An incensed Chet, who has previously battled drug addiction, took to Instagram to hit back at ‘p***y’ Andre, claimed he ‘outshone’ the star on his own show and that he was ‘easily scared.’
‘He must just not have liked that the fact I f*****g outshined you on your own f*****g show, and honestly, when I was on there, the dude seemed shook ’cause when I came out and sat down, he seemed, like, genuinely nervous, like, just being around me, the dude seemed like f*****g shook I don’t know what it was.’
‘There’s a lot of f*****g weirdos in Hollywood, and I think you are one of them,” he added. ‘I thought you were funny and cool, but it turns out you’re just a p***y, dude. That’s what’s up.’
He branded Andre ‘really soft and really nervous’ and concluded: ‘I was just playing along with your schtick dude, but, you know, it is what it is. Some people are just straight b*****s and apparently, Eric André is one.’
Emily Ratajkowski’s ex Andre then sensationally hit back at Hanks, calling him a ‘liar’ and urging him to ‘ take a DNA test,’
He said on Wednesday: ‘Everything Chet Hanks just said about me is a f*****g bold-faced lie. He’s a f*****g liar! And I dare him to take a f*****g DNA test, and prove that Tom Hanks is his f*****g father!”
JAMAICAN ACCENT AND CULTURAL APPROPRIATION
Jamaican love: Chet has routinely been hit with claims of ‘cultural appropriation’ for frequently attempting to speak in a fake ‘Jamaican’ accent
No apologies: While appearing on Showtime talk show ZIWE , he was asked if there were any marginalized communities he wanted to apologize to. Hanks replied: ‘Nah’
In defense: He defended his actions when speaking about cultural appropriation in an Instagram video. He asked: ‘Why are we so caught up on this idea of theft and stealing?’
In April, the father-of-one faced backlash for refusing to apologize for culturally appropriating accents.
While appearing on Showtime talk show ZIWE, he was asked if there were any marginalized communities he wanted to apologize to. Hanks replied: ‘Nah.’
Chet had routinely been hit with claims of ‘cultural appropriation’ for frequently attempting to speak in a fake ‘Jamaican’ accent.
In 2020, he was yet again slammed for impersonating what seemed to be Jamaican patois – an English-based creole language with West African influences – in a bizarre video rant about Donald Trump following Joe Biden’s presidential win.
Chet once again impersonated a Jamaican accent at the Golden Globes in 2020, after a video went viral of him speaking Patois and laughing, as he said he didn’t want a ‘mawga’ girl, meaning ‘skinny.’
However, he defended his actions when speaking about cultural appropriation in an Instagram video in February.
He asked: ‘Why are we so caught up on this idea of theft and stealing?’
‘Why are we so quick to be angry and tense over the blurring of racial communities, instead of just being welcoming towards it?’
ACCUSATIONS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FROM EX-GIRLFRIEND
Relationship woes: Hanks was accused of domestic abuse by ex-girlfriend Kiana Parker in a $1 million suit she filed against him in 2021
Serious: The lawsuit stated that Hanks shoved and grabbed his ex-girlfriend, threatened to carry out a murder-suicide and branded her a ‘ghetto black b**** who wouldn’t be believed
In 2021 Chet was accused of domestic abuse by his ex-girlfriend Kiana Parker.
A civil suit filed by Parker alleged she was physically and psychologically terrorized by Hanks between October 2020 and 2021.
The lawsuit stated that Hanks shoved and grabbed his ex-girlfriend, threatened to carry out a murder-suicide and branded her a ‘ghetto black b**** who wouldn’t be believed.
Hanks’ lawyer dismissed Parkers’ allegations as a ‘shakedown,’ and claims they are in response to a suit filed by Hanks, claiming that Parker attacked him with a pot, leaving him with blood gushing from a wound on his forehead.
A clip of that confrontation also appeared to show Parker menacing Hanks with a knife while screaming ‘Sh*t.’ The screen faded to black, with Hanks then filmed showing his forehead wound while Parker saying that he ‘pushed her.’
Parker said in her new court documents that Chet got into a clash with her in New Orleans October 18, claiming he pushed her and grabbed her arms and wrists after she said she was leaving the room they had shared at the Windsor Court Hotel.
Parker told the court that Hanks said that said she was ‘just a ghetto black b****’ who wouldn’t be believed, and that he’d threatened the murder-suicide the following month. She added that her nine-year-old twins were at home during the incident.
Chet and Parker were seen in a violent exchange on video January 8, as she was moving her things out of his abode.
Parker, in legal docs, said that Hanks had approached her with a knife in the incident, and she hit him with a pot to defend herself; she received a temporary restraining order in the incident.
Meanwhile his attorney branded the claims ‘completely false, fabricated and fictional.’
CLAIMS HE HAD ‘NO STRONG MALE ROLE MODEL’ GROWING UP
No role model: Chet shocked fans in 2022, after he claimed he didn’t have a ‘strong male role model’ growing up; Pictured with father Tom in 2012
Struggles: Chet claimed he did not have a ‘strong male role model’ during his teens while he was struggling with the pressures of having celebrity parents
Parents: Although Chet assured the public that ‘I love my parents’ and ‘wouldn’t want any different parents,’ he confessed having a famous family is ‘a double-edged sword’; Tom and Rita pictured 2022
Chet was slammed by his father Tom’s fans in February of 2022, after he claimed he didn’t have a ‘strong male role model’ growing up, as they insisted he is an ‘entitled brat’ who threw his dad ‘under the bus.’
Chet claimed he did not have a ‘strong male role model’ during his teens while he was struggling with the pressures of having celebrity parents.
Although Chet assured the public that ‘I love my parents’ and ‘wouldn’t want any different parents,’ he confessed having a famous family is ‘a double-edged sword.’
He opened up about his upbringing in a YouTube video titled ‘The Truth About Growing Up As A Hanks’ saying many people had ‘contempt’ for him as a movie star’s child, and while trying to navigate the ‘s***-talking’ and the ‘d***-riders,’ he lacked ‘a strong male role model’ who could have told him: ”Hey, bro, f*** these people. They are just jealous of you.”’
In the video, Chet shared that ‘my experience was even more complicated because on top of fame already being toxic, I wasn’t even famous. You know, 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, a lot of contempt for me.’
Chet shared that while his father was ‘on this pedestal,’ he himself was ‘assumed’ to be ‘a really arrogant, entitled spoiled brat even though I really wasn’t.’
During his high school and college years ‘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 walls so I encountered a lot of disdain, a lot of animosity, a lot of negativity because everybody was just prepared to hate my guts.’
As a result he wound up with ‘a chip on my shoulder’ and formed a ‘hard exterior’ because of the ‘anger’ he was harboring.
He recalled that ‘people did kinda f*** with me a lot growing up. It was never to my face. It was always behind my back, in the forms of like gossip and s***-talking.’
At the time he was also fielding ‘d***-riders’ who ‘didn’t give a f***ing s*** about me’ but were ‘just infatuated with the idea of hanging around f***ing Tom Hanks’ son.’
CELEBRATING ‘WHITE BOY SUMMER’
Controversial: Hanks found himself the butt of jokes in 2021, after he declared that the upcoming summer was going to be ‘white boy summer’
Going for it: ‘I just got this feeling, man, that this summer, it’s about to be a white boy summer,’ he said blankly in a video filmed from his car
Not a fan: Some Twitter users were quick to point out that ‘white boy summer’ wasn’t exactly a new idea while suggesting that it was a racist statement
Hanks found himself the butt of jokes in 2021, after he declared that the upcoming summer was going to be ‘white boy summer.’
The entertainer – who later released a song also titled White Boy Summer – instantly became the main character on Twitter as some people poked fun at his statement while others accused him of racism.
‘I just got this feeling, man, that this summer, it’s about to be a white boy summer,’ he said blankly.
‘Take it how you want,’ he continued. ‘I’m not talking about Trump, Nascar-type white boy summer, I’m talking about me, Jon B, Jack Harlow–type white boy summer. You know what I mean? Let me know if you guys can vibe with that.’
He added in his caption: ‘Is it bout to be a #WhiteboySummer or am I trippin ???? Tag a REAL vanilla king #Respectfully.’
Some Twitter users were quick to point out that ‘white boy summer’ wasn’t exactly a new idea.
‘Someone tell Chet Hanks that we’re already several thousand years into a white boy summer,’ one user wrote.
Many social media users poked fun at how how different Chet was from his actor father Tom and his mother Rita.
‘Chet Hanks is proof that you can do everything right in the world and kids will still embarrass tf outta you,’ another person joked, reference Tom’s beloved public persona.
BATTLED WITH DRUG ADDICTION SINCE 16-YEARS-OLD: ‘I WAS SELLING COKE AND SMOKED CRACK’
Addiction: Chet has openly shared about his drug addiction, which he claimed to have battled since he was 16 years old, and shared at one point he was selling coke and smoking crack
Sober now: In September, Chet revealed with an Instagram post that he has been one year sober and wrote that, ‘This is just the beginning’
Chet has previously shared about his drug addiction, which he claimed to have battled since he was 16 years old.
‘I’ve been struggling with substance abuse since I was 16 years old. Finally at the age of 24 I decided to get some help,’ he shared on Instagram in 2014.
In another series of videos he shared that he was selling coke and smoking crack, before checking into rehab. ‘A couple months ago I was selling coke [and] doing coke until I couldn’t even snort it up my nose anymore because it was so clogged. I even smoked crack,’ he revealed.
The musician believes his struggles with addiction stem for his lifestyle in the public eye and his difficulty trying to ‘fit in’ and follow in his famous father’s footsteps.
After he went to rehab, Chet’s two-time Oscar winning father revealed in an Entertainment Tonight interview that he supported his son, ‘every step of the way.’
Last year Chet opened up on the Ivan Paychecks podcast, stating that his father, Tom, and mother, Rita, had sent him to a ‘wilderness camp’ back in 2008 to help him deal with his addiction issues when he was still in high school.
He had recounted the morning he had woken up to find men surrounding his bed, prepared to escort him to the Utah camp.
‘Bald heads, like military guys looking like bouncers, you know? And I’m like, ‘What the f***? What the f*** is going on?’ They’re like, ‘You’re coming with us, we could do this the easy way or the hard way,’ Chet had expressed.
Chet expressed that he believed both of his parents had been, ‘manipulated the whole time,’ due to their Hollywood and wealthy status and were used as ‘whales’ because they had the ‘resources to keep’ him at the camp for ‘long f***ing time.’
In September of this year, Chet had updated his followers about his journey to sobriety, and revealed he has been sober for one year.
‘The decision was final. Never going back to that. Ever. This is just the beginning. Today can be the day that changes your life forever,’ he had typed in the caption of his post.
DEFENDING HIS USE OF THE N-WORD
Wild take: In 2015, Chet defended his use of the N-word on social media, saying he believes it ‘unifies the culture of hip-hop across all races’, but he later admitted that he now ‘realizes’ his white privilege; Pictured 2017
In 2015, Chet defended his use of the N-word on social media, saying he believes it ‘unifies the culture of hip-hop across all races.’
In an Instagram post, he said: ‘I do say the n word in real life amongst my black friends who get me and can’t nobody tell me I can’t say what the [expletive] I feel like no disrespect to the struggle of black ppl during the civil rights movement but it’s 2015 now.’
He went on to encourage followers to ‘get with the times.’
However later, Chet admitted that he now ‘realizes’ his white privilege, following a debate about cultural appropriation online.
Cultural appropriation is a phrase to describe when members of a dominant culture use elements from a disadvantaged or minority culture for profit.
‘This has been an intense period of selfie reflection and it’s been an enlightening period for me,’ he said, but attempted to justify his Jamaican accent, adding: ‘It’s my only liberation from the constant activity of my mental. I am who I am.’
Chet also explained on The Red Pill Podcast with Van Lathan that he, ‘was on a lot of drugs’ when he used the N-word frequently, and when he tried to defend it in a now-deleted Instagram video.
‘Number one, I was on a lot of drugs,’ Hanks said. ‘I wanted to be, like, down, you know what I mean? I just felt like I wasn’t enough.’
‘Lowkey, like subconsciously, looking back on it now I realize I was trolling,’ he said. ‘I thought, like, crazy antics and just whiling the f—k out and doing some crazy s—t was going to like spark my career.’
‘I felt like I wasn’t enough’: ‘Number one, I was on a lot of drugs,’ Hanks said of that time period of his life. ‘I wanted to be, like, down, you know what I mean? I just felt like I wasn’t enough’
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