Tom Hanks has sent a letter and a Corona-brand typewriter to an Australian boy who wrote to him about being bullied over his name, Corona.
Corona De Vries, an eight-year-old from the Gold Coast in Queensland state, wrote to the Hollywood star after he and his wife, Rita Wilson, had spent more than two weeks in quarantine after testing positive for Covid-19 in the Australian beach resort.
The boy had written to Hanks saying: “I heard on the news you and your wife had caught the coronavirus,” Channel 7 News reported. “Are you OK?” He said he loved his name but people at school called him the coronavirus, which made him “sad and angry”.
.@tomhanks has written a heart-felt letter to a young Helensvale boy named Corona. The 8-year-old was being bullied at school and decided to write to the Hollywood superstar and his wife @RitaWilson, after they were diagnosed with Coronavirus. https://t.co/6l2nzFJNn5 #7NEWS pic.twitter.com/H02WF2dRCx
— 7NEWS Gold Coast (@7NewsGoldCoast) April 23, 2020
“Your letter made my wife and I feel so wonderful!” Hanks replied in a letter typed on a Corona typewriter that he had taken to the Gold Coast. “You know, you are the only person I’ve ever known to have the name Corona – like the ring around the sun, a crown,” the double Oscar winner wrote to the boy.
“I thought this typewriter would suit you,” he wrote. “Ask a grown up how it works. And use it to write me back.”
Hanks handwrote at the end: “PS You got a friend in ME!”– Reuters
