Tom Hanks And Rita Wilson Once Took Legal Action Over Wild Divorce Rumors

As an entertainment industry icon, Tom Hanks has been subjected to some crazy fabrications over the years. But he's constantly rolled with the punches and taken the path of least resistance. Until the tittle-tattle went a step too far, and Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson were forced to blast wild divorce rumors that cropped up, even going so far as to take legal action. Because you can speculate all you want about the actor, but once you involve who Hanks is married to, he will come out all guns blazing.

"The truth to some is no longer empirical. It's no longer based on data nor common sense, nor even common decency," Hanks told Harvard's graduating students on May 26 while receiving an honorary arts degree himself (via BBC News). "Truth is now considered malleable, by opinion, by zero-sum end games." The actor urged the scholars to never give in to lies and battle for the truth.

Hanks certainly knows a thing or two about disinformation and falsehoods. He got dragged into the ALT-right QAnon insanity in 2022 with a slew of appalling and unsubstantiated claims thrown at him. Newsweek reports that Hanks even became the subject of a tweet—shared nearly 11,000 times — that included a photoshopped image of a BBC "report" falsely claiming he'd been arrested. Hanks didn't bother to dignify the gossip with a response. So, what were the wild divorce rumors that pushed Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson to take legal action?

Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson were pushed over the edge by the wild divorce rumors printed in the tabloids in 2016. Reuters reported that sister publications, Star Magazine and the National Enquirer, who were then owned by the now-defunct publishing company American Media Inc., ran stories about Hanks and Wilson's supposed imploding marriage. The couple had previously laughed off the crazy speculation and baseless chatter about their relationship. Still, as their 29th wedding anniversary loomed, they felt it was time to take a stand.

Star claimed the couple was splitting because Hanks was getting cozy with Felicity Jones. Meanwhile, the Enquirer alleged he was getting down with longtime collaborator and costar Meg Ryan. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the couple sicced legal pitbull Marty Singer onto them over the "lies we would not put up with any longer." And, just like that, both publications immediately took down their online stories, printed retractions, and issued apologies.

"We did not intend to report that Tom Hanks was having any kind of an inappropriate relationship with Meg Ryan or that he and Rita Wilson were divorcing. We apologize for and regret any implication to the contrary," the Enquirer wrote about their story, sub headlined "$400 million marriage crumbling over Hanks' love for [Meg] Ryan." Star issued the same apology but with Jones's name instead of Ryan's for their story, headlined, "Rita & Tom The Fight to End All Fights!"

Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson's relationship stems way back. Per People, the two were good friends before becoming romantically involved. They first met in 1981 on the set of the sitcom, "Bosom Buddies." At the time, Tom was married to his first wife, Samantha Lewes, with whom he shares two children: His oldest son, Colin Hanks, and his daughter, Elizabeth Ann Hanks. Tom and Lewes, who sadly died of bone cancer in 2002, had been college sweethearts, and as his fame increased, they grew apart.

Tom and Wilson publicly became a couple in 1986 and married two years later. They also have two children, Chester "Chet" Hanks and Tom's youngest son, Truman Hanks, who is growing up to look just like the star. Wilson took to Instagram on May 1 to celebrate their latest wedding anniversary. "35 years of marriage. April 30, 1988. Love is everything," she captioned a cute pic of Tom handing her a cake as she laughed.

The two clearly like to keep humor at the forefront of their union. "She was a bottle of champagne that came uncorked... Everybody was sipping and celebrating — I'd say," Tom told Fox News about his wife's performance at the Academy's MusiCares Persons of the Year event in February. "Talking about it. Always letting the press know that there is a secret, and we bottled it," he later quipped about how they keep their marriage so happy after so many years.