TOM HANKS used his Hollywood clout to send his druggie son to prison!
But even that couldn’t save Chet Hanks from his sad path of deadly self-destruction.
“They tried to scare him straight,” a longtime friend of the rapper told The National ENQUIRER, revealing how Tom and wife Rita Wilson sent their son on a terrifying tour of a maximum security prison while Chet was in high school.
“They told Chet, ‘This is where you’re ending up!’” said the concerned pal. “But Chet didn’t take the jail visit seriously. He just kept getting high!”
Chet’s privileged upbringing first took a twisted turn when he was sent to the exclusive Harvard-Westlake School in L.A.
“He began partying every weekend, smoking pot and drinking,” said the insider. “Then he got into harder stuff. Chet wasn’t the nice kid anymore. He was becoming someone else.”
The pampered private-school student went on to Northwestern University – where Chet began posing as a streetwise rapper as his drug abuse worsened.
“Chet came home during breaks acting like he was raised on the streets, using rapper lingo … He called himself ‘Chet Haze.’”
Tom and Rita finally got their son to enter rehab months ago – and Chet, 24, later announced he was “50 days clean and sober from everything, including alcohol.”
But after being ridiculed recently over the Internet for a video where he boasted about using the “n-word,” Chet traveled to Europe – where he’s now wanted by British authorities for causing $1,800 worth of damages to his London hotel room after a night of outrageous partying.
“Tom’s especially upset because of the stress on Rita, who’s recovering from a double mastectomy,” said a family friend. “They have all the money and fame in the world, yet they don’t have one day of peace. It’s a parent’s worst nightmare!”
