Tom Hanks Gives a Boy Named Corona a Gift After He’s Bullied

You’ve got a friend in me! Tom Hanks gifted a young boy in Australia his personal typewriter after he was bullied for his name — Corona.

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Corona De Vries, 8, wrote Hanks, 63, a letter to check on his illness following his recovery from COVID-19, asking, “Are you OK?” Corona also revealed, via Reuters, that he was “sad and angry” that people were bullying him at school for his name, calling him “the coronavirus” following the outbreak.

The Cast Away star wrote back on his “Corona” typewriter, which he had with him while under quarantine in Australia, to thank him for his kind words. The actor’s letter was revealed in a video that aired on Australia’s Channel 7, which made the boy feel like he was “famous.”

Tom Hanks Reaches Out to a Boy Named Corona After He’s Bullied, Sends Him a Gift — Tom Hanks attends the Governors Awards on October 27, 2019. Michael Buckner/Variety/Shutterstock

“Your letter made my wife and I feel so wonderful,” the two-time Oscar-winning actor wrote in his April 10 response.

He added: “You know, you are the only person I’ve ever known to have the name Corona — like the ring around the sun, a crown.”

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The California native asked Corona to be his pen pal after noting that he thought his gift, the typewriter with his moniker on it, would “suit” him perfectly.

“PS: You got a friend in ME!” Hanks wrote, giving a nod to his Toy Story films in which he’s voiced Sheriff Woody for four installments.

The Queensland native told Reuters, “[Tom] said I’m a friend to him,” and excitedly said that he’s “gonna write back soon.”

The Won’t You Be My Neighbor star and his wife, Rita Wilson, tested positive for coronavirus in early March, while filming the upcoming Elvis Presley biopic Down Under. They were hospitalized and placed into isolation immediately upon their diagnosis.

The duo were released from the hospital on March 16, and continued to quarantine in Australia for two weeks before returning home to Los Angeles on March 27.

A few weeks after being back in L.A. Hanks opened up about his health scare and how it differed from Wilson’s.

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“Rita went through a tougher time than I did,” the A League of Their Own star said during an interview with the National Defense Radio Show on April 16. “She had a much higher fever. She had lost her sense of taste and sense of smell.”

The Forrest Gump actor, on the other hand, “had some bad body aches and was very fatigued.”

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source: usmagazine.com