Sir Anthony Hopkins’ heartbreaking confession: “I don’t have any idea if I’m a grandfather”
Actor Sir Anthony Hopkins sadly shares a lot in common with his latest character, King Lear.
The 80-year-old also has a troubled relationship with his daughter and only child, Abigail, and has not spoken to her in two decades.
Due to their estrangement, Hopkins is unaware if he is a grandfather.
Asked if his daughter, who works as an actress and theatre director, had children, Hopkins said: “I don’t have any idea. People break up. Families split and, you know, ‘get on with your life’. People make choices. I don’t care one way or the other. It is cold. Because life is cold.”
Abigail uses the surname “Harrison” so that she could have a “career on her own terms”,
Harrison was raised by her mother, Hopkins’ first wife, Petronella Barker, after the couple divorced when she was four years old.
Hopkins reconnected with his daughter briefly in the 1990s and she appeared in two of his films, Shadowlands and The Remains Of The Day.
However, they became estranged again to the point where Hopkins now claims he doesn’t know where she lives.
Hopkins accused Hollywood of being “insidious” and toxic and told Radio Times, “Children don’t like their fathers, you don’t have to love each other.
“Look how people feel entitled to this, that and the other, and they can only be surrounded by Yes people. I don’t want to be surrounded by people like that. The 'luvvie' and the kissing cheeks – I can’t stand it. There’s so much hypocrisy.”
Hopkins now lives in California with his third wife, Colombian antiques dealer Stella Arroyave.
“She’s very good for me,” he said.
“My wife worries because I work too hard. I will go on working because what else would I do? I’ll retire when my teeth and my hair fall out.”