Chet Hanks, the 33 year-old son of the Hollywood legend Tom Hanks, is opening up about finding Jesus Christ after battling drug and alcohol addiction for years.
Chet’s History With Addiction
Chet is currently starring on the MTV reality show Surreal Life: Villa of Secrets. He’s hoping that on this show, fans will get to know the “real” him.
“I feel like the media has really twisted their representation of me,” Chet told USA Today. “Especially in the early days, I didn’t really have a platform for my voice to be heard. So I just always wanted the opportunity to be able to express myself.
“Some of it’s my own doing because I joke around a lot and I’m kind of a troll and my life is like performance art and satire,” he continued. “People really can’t tell when I’m being serious or when I’m not, or who Chet really is.”
Chet is a rapper and actor who battled a cocaine addiction so extreme that he compared it to the Scarface kingpin Tony Montana’s habit. Chet has thankfully now been sober for nearly three years.
“I had a chip on my shoulder that kind of created a monster,” he explained. “I just had this attitude of ‘Eff everybody.’ That, coupled with addiction and substance abuse, is a recipe for nothing good. That’s how I lived for a long time until I got sober.”
Related: Tom Hanks Banned His Son Chet From Doing One Thing – He Did It Anyway
Chet Finds Jesus After Considering Suicide
That isn’t to say that sobriety has been easy, however. While recently appearing on Bradley Martyn’s Raw Talk podcast, Chet revealed that he held a gun to his own head one year ago. He ultimately decided not to end his life because he didn’t want to abandon his daughter Michaiah, who was born to him and his ex-girlfriend Tiffany Miles.
While attending a funeral shortly afterwards, Chet welcomed Jesus into his heart. Since then, he’s found a “profound peace” that has stayed with him. This feeling overrides the anxiety and fear that Chet had been grappling with for decades.
Chet is the oldest of two sons that Tom shares with the actress Rita Wilson. Tom is also the father of two older children from a previous marriage.
Chet Felt Worthless Growing Up
Surreal Life: Villa of Secrets premiered on MTV on Tuesday night. In the episode, Chet admitted that he felt worthless growing up with a famous father like Tom.
“I’ve always just kind of been treated as separate and other than because of the circumstances of my family and my parents,” he explained. “People were always just prepared to hate me. So I felt like I had a chip on my shoulder.”
Chet found all of this to be very difficult to deal with.
“But what am I supposed to do?” he lamented. “Walk through the doors and be all meek and timid? That was a mind […] for me to deal with.”
Full Story: Tom Hanks Son Chet Says He Felt ‘Worthless’ Growing Up With A Famous Father – ‘It Was A Battle’
Chet has clearly been through quite a lot in his life, but we’re glad that he’s finally found Jesus. If you want to learn more about Chet, be sure to tune into Surreal Life: Villa of Secrets on Tuesday nights on MTV!
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