Sir Anthony Hopkins sent a message to his estranged daughter, Abigail, in his newly released memoir, We Did OK, Kid.
“I hope my daughter knows that my door is always open to her. I want her to be well and happy,” Hopkins, 87, wrote in the book, published on Tuesday, November 4. “Until the day I die, I will never forget the sight of her in that crib, laughing up at me when I walked in the room the first year of her life, sleeping soundly the night I left. I will always be sorry for hurting her when I left the family, even as I believe to this day that I had no choice.”
Hopkins shares Abigail with first wife Petronella Barker, to whom he was married from 1966 to 1972. In the book, he detailed their tumultuous marriage — which was exacerbated, in part, by his alcohol addiction — and decision to leave his family.
When starting his sobriety journey, Hopkins tried to make amends and issued an apology to both Barker and Abigail. The actor flew to London in 1997, when his daughter was 9 years old, for a sit-down.
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“The meeting was awkward. We put up a good front, but obviously so much damage had been done. They didn’t want me there,” he wrote. “Throughout the meal, they kept catching each other’s eye and making faces.”
Hopkins recalled Abigail staying with him as a teenager on several occasions as well.
“I helped her get small acting parts and I tried to make her feel as welcome as I could. I bought her an apartment. But she drifted away,” he added. “Abigail never seemed able to forgive me for leaving the family when she was a baby. She had her reasons. I can’t blame her for that. That’s life. But it was and is a tremendous source of pain.”
Hopkins admitted he’s “avoided talking” about the estranged relationship with his daughter and even acknowledged how he’s discussed their relationship publicly.
“It is true that I have spoken about her in the press coldly,” he wrote. “Saying in one regrettable interview that after 20 years of not hearing from her, I no longer knew where she was or if she’d ever married or had children, and that at that point I did not care.”
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After leaving his marriage to Barker, the actor moved on with Jennifer Lynton. They were married from 1973 to 2002 and did not share any children. Hopkins is currently married to Stella Arroyave, with whom he tied the knot in 2003.
“After realizing I was unfit as a father for Abigail, I vowed not to have any more children, and I have kept that promise. I knew I was too selfish,” he explained in the book. “I couldn’t do to another child what I’d done to her.”
Hopkins has since become a “father figure” to others, but that was only after he “learned patience and kindness.”
“When you see someone who’s suffering some terrible loneliness, you can say, ‘I know how you feel.’ You can’t give them a shot and make them better,” he wrote. “But you can be there.”
