Harry Hamlin opened up about his relationship with his son, Dimitri — and admitted that he wasn’t always the most hands-on dad.
The L.A. Law alum, 73, spoke about Dimitri, 44, during the Friday, March 7, episode of his and wife Lisa Rinna’s “Let’s Not Talk About the Husband” podcast.
“My son Dimitri, who’s the light of my life, he’s now in his 40s. He was born in 1980,” Hamlin began. “And his mother and I were only together for a couple of years, Ursula Andress. She moved back to Italy with him and she raised him there without me because I was living in the United States, she was living in Italy.”
Hamlin said he and Dimitri would visit each other “from time to time,” but he wasn’t always physically present in his son’s life.
“I missed him throughout his childhood,” he explained. “He didn’t have Dad there at his school plays, at his soccer games, I was not there to help him with his homework, I was not there to help navigate his way through bullying at school.”
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Rinna, 61, noted that her husband often “had long, long conversations with [Dimitri] on the phone,” but Hamlin said that wasn’t a substitute for being there in person.
“I was always a presence in his life but I wasn’t there constantly, and he suffered from it,” he said. “He has issues because of that.”
When Rinna and Hamlin welcomed kids together — daughters Delilah Belle, 26, and Amelia Gray, 23 — the Mad Men actor said that his experience with Dimitri showed him what kind of parent he wanted to be.
“So when our kids were born, when Delilah was born, I said, ‘I’m gonna be here throughout her childhood. I’m not gonna leave,’” Hamlin recalled. “I said, ‘I’m gonna stay here and work in L.A. only. I’m not gonna go on location, I’m not gonna go to Toronto or Sydney, Australia, or wherever.’”
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Around the same time, however, a lot of productions moved to places like Atlanta because of tax incentives, meaning that there weren’t as many options for Hamlin in L.A.
“And the whole business up and left L.A. in 1998,” he said. “What it ended up [with] is me kind of taking a break for 20 years while we raised these kids. But during that time we also became quite entrepreneurial.”
The pair went on to detail their experience opening their clothing boutique, Belle Gray, which helped supplement their income while they were acting less frequently. The duo later launched a QVC collection, and Rinna has since founded her own beauty line.
