Being the child of wealth, privilege, and celebrity is hard — and Chet Hanks, the often controversy-courting son of Oscar-winner Tom Hanks and actress Rita Wilson, is very plain about it. For those on the outside of fame’s bubble, this can seem mystifying — what’s so hard about having all your needs met and a head start in life?
But the facts don’t lie. Countless celebrity sons and daughters have encountered major trouble in life, from money problems to addiction to the inability to develop their own personas in the shadows of famous parents. And it’s not just a modern condition — history is riddled with ne’er-do-wells born to swells.
The younger Hanks, 31, just started a new YouTube channel where he pledges to go deeper and get more “real” about his life — and how he views his unique experience. That view isn’t pretty, based on the first video, but it does appear that Chet Hanks is trying to be transparent and honest.
He talks about a meeting of the minds he had with then President George W. Bush when Chet was 14. It was two sons of privilege both agreeing it is a weird state of being.
But Hanks is trying to face the life, and maybe even conquer it. He says almost straightaway that he’s “come a long way” since “white boy summer.” Here Hanks references a comment he made, drawing huge blowback, where he conflated the massive BLM protests of 2020 with the social media meme of “hot girl summer” popular the year before. Yes, he called for a “white boy summer.”
He says he knows now that the privilege he experienced is a blessing and says frankly: “I love my parents. I wouldn’t want any different parents.” But the problem, as Chet describes it, is that “I wasn’t even famous…I hadn’t even done anything to deserve any sort of recognition and that created a lot of contempt. My dad is beloved, he’s on this pedestal, but for me it created a lot of contempt.”
