Britt Jones
Actor Anthony Hopkins has revealed something sad about his relationship with his daughter Abigail after opening up about their troubled past in his memoir.
It isn’t often the Silence of the Lambs star talks about his personal life, having spoken briefly over his six decades of television and film work about the struggles he went through as a child, with alcohol, and during his first marriage.
But having published a memoir about it, called We Did Ok, Kid in October 2025, it invited questions into another aspect of his past.
His relationship with his only child Abigail.
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In his book, Hopkins wrote about how he became a father in 1968, with his first wife Petronella Barker.
At the time, he was struggling with alcoholism and after an argument with his wife, he packed his bags and left her and his 14-month-old baby.
Of the moment, he wrote: “I looked down at her and whispered goodbye.
“Then I walked back to the hall, picked up my suitcases, and left the house.”
He has since been sober for 50 years and wrote of how his ‘door is always open’ to his daughter, who has remained largely estranged from her father.
Anthony shared a message to Abigail, now 57, after refusing to answer a question about his personal life in an interview with the New York Times.
“I know what you’re going to ask about. My domestic life,” the star said at the start of the clip. “No, no.”
Hopkins claimed his current wife, Stella Arroyave, reached out to his daughter with an ‘invitation’ to reconcile, but it went without a response.
The revelation came as interviewer David Marchese shared his own story of being estranged from his dad for two decades, admitting to having only spoken to him twice during that time.
He then asked Hopkins what his view on estrangement was, and if there is room for reconciliation between parents and children.
To this, the 88-year-old said: “My wife Stella sent an invitation to come and see us.
“Not a word of response. So I think, OK, fine. I wish her well, but I'm not going to waste blood over that."
The actor continued: “If you want to waste your life being in resentment... 58 years later, fine. Go ahead...
“I could carry resentments over the past, this and the other, but that's death. You're not living."
He went on to share that 'we are imperfect... we're all sinners and saints or whatever we are', but 'we do the best we can’, revealing that 'life is painful’ and ‘sometimes people get hurt’, or 'we get hurt’, but that you 'can't live like that’.
The Academy Award winner went on to bluntly say: "You have to say, ‘get over it’. Now, if you can't get over it, fine. Good luck to you.
“But I have no judgment. I did what I could. So that's it."
When Marchese asked Hopkins if he hopes his daughter reads the book, he said: "I'm not going to answer that. I don't care."
He then ask Marchese to move on 'because I don't want to hurt her'.
He concluded: "Twenty years the offer was made, but fine. Onwards."
In his book, the father-of-one wrote of how he and his first wife attempted to reconcile his relationship with Abigail at nine, and again in her teenage years.
He wrote: “I hope my daughter knows that my door is always open to her. I want her to be well and happy. 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.”
Abigail is an actress, musician, and documentary filmmaker according to her Instagram account .
In the 1990s, she had cameos in movies alongside her father in what appears to be a brief reconciliation.
Those movies were Shadowlands and The Remains of the Day.
Sadly, according to her website, she was diagnosed with state three bowel cancer in December 2020 but is currently in remission.
Tyla has contacted representatives of Anthony Hopkins and Abigail.