Keeping her distance. Rita Wilson was very cautious of her personal interactions at an event in Beverly Hills two weeks before news broke that she and Tom Hanks were diagnosed with coronavirus.
Wilson, 63, decided not to shake hands with anyone while walking the red carpet at the Women’s Cancer Research Fund’s An Unforgettable Evening fundraiser at the end of February.
At the same event, Wilson revealed to The Hollywood Reporter that her reluctance to make personal contact with people was “a cautionary measure” and that she had postponed a number of planned performances as the disease’s outbreak continued to spread worldwide. The Mamma Mia actress was set to do a series of shows with Sugarland’s Kristian Bush on U.S. military bases in South Korea.
“Many of those [coronavirus] cases are very, very close to one of the bases where we were going to be performing, so we’re going to postpone,” she told THR in February. “We’ll do it sometime in the fall now, or maybe spring, but we’re definitely going back because I want to do it.”
Two weeks after Wilson took extensive precautions in public, her husband, 63, took to Instagram to announce that the pair had tested positive for the illness while in Australia.
“We felt a bit tired, like we had colds, and some body aches,” the Toy Story actor wrote on Wednesday, March 11. “Rita had some chills that came and went. Slight fevers too. To play things right, as is needed in the world right now, we were tested for the Coronavirus, and were found to be positive.”
The You’ve Got Mail star continued, trying to keep fans’ minds at ease about the shocking news. “The Medical Officials have protocols that must be followed. We Hanks’ will be tested, observed, and isolated for as long as public health and safety requires,” he wrote. “Not much more to it than a one-day-at-a-time approach, no? We’ll keep the world posted and updated.”
Shortly after Hanks’ announcement, Wilson made a lighthearted comment about how the couple was passing the time. The actress shared a song from her 2018 album, Bigger Picture, to her Instagram Story on Thursday, March 12, joking that she was enjoying “some music from my coronavirus vacation.”
The couple’s sons, Chet and Colin Hanks, also tried to stay positive in the wake of their parents’ diagnoses. Colin, 42, wrote via social media that his family was “so grateful for the outpouring of support” and that his parents are “in good spirits,” while his brother, 29, reassured fans that the actors were “going through the necessary health precautions.”
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