Rita Wilson learned about father’s tragic past, secret family in Bulgaria on TV show

Rita Wilson is opening up about a painful chapter of her family's history.

During a recent appearance on the "How to Fail with Elizabeth Day" podcast, the actress shared that her father had a wife and child in Bulgaria before meeting her mother.

"I did this show — it's an English show, 'Who Do You Think You Are,'" the 69-year-old said. "Usually, in those genealogy shows, they go back many, many generations. But what they found with my dad was that his story was so shocking and unusual that they stuck with his story."

The star further recalled traveling to Bulgaria for the show, and after visiting the Hall of Records, news of her father's secret family came to light.

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Upon learning that she had a sibling she previously had no knowledge of, Wilson was filled with excitement at the possibility of meeting a new family member. She then quickly learned about her father's tragic backstory.

"My dad's first wife, whose name was Alice, gave birth on Dec. 26, and she died three days later due to complications from delivery," Wilson explained. "Her son, and my dad's son, Emil, lived for four months. This was right after the war, and then he passed away. I don't know the name of it, but it was like an infection."

The "Now and Then" star then explained that both she and her sister gave birth to one of their children on Dec. 26, telling the podcast host that, looking back, "I think of my dad, all of those years, celebrating all those birthdays, and knowing that he had a child born on Dec. 26, Emil, who passed away."

Wilson's father died in 2009 at the age of 89 and never told the actress or other family members about his previous life.

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"I still can't get over that. He never said anything to us," she explained. "I wish I could've talked to him about that. They kept things so private."

She previously discussed this family secret during an interview on "The BobbyCast" podcast in October 2022. In the interview, she shared that following the death of his wife and son, "he tried to escape Bulgaria. I think just out of sheer unhappiness."

The patriarch was caught during his escape attempt and sent to a labor camp. After tricking a guard while on the night shift, he was able to run away with a fellow inmate. Wilson noted they "eventually got away [and] made their way to Turkey."

"My dad got a job on a freighter boat shoveling coal and made his way to Philadelphia and jumped the ship," she said. "But what he did was he took Richard with him as a stowaway because there was no work for Richard. And so, he was stowed away in basically the engine room. And Richard and my dad made it to America."

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Eventually, Wilson's father met and married her mother. They had three children, including Wilson, her sister Lily and her brother Chris.

Wilson went on to find success as an actress and married Oscar winner Tom Hanks in April 1988. They share two sons, Chet and Truman Hanks. She is also a stepmother to his two children from a previous marriage, Colin and Elizabeth.