Heather Graham speaks openly about being estranged from her family for nearly 30 years.
The Austin Powers actress opened up about her family conflicts in a column published Thursday by The Wall Street Journal, writing that “home and school were not pleasant places during her childhood.” She also discussed her FBI agent father James’ disapproval of her Hollywood career.
“He would regularly tell me that the entertainment industry was evil and that Hollywood would claim my soul if I became an actress and appeared in a film with sexual content,” she wrote, adding that her “parents were part of a generation that didn’t believe in therapy or talking about personal matters, so I never felt like I could talk to them.”
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In the article, Graham, 54, describes moving from a Washington, D.C., suburb to Agoura Hills, California, at age 9, where she says she didn’t fit in. In the article, she talks about shopping at discount clothing stores, where her mother picked out her outfits, and feeling like an outcast at school.
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“I looked like a 40-year-old woman when I was 15,” Graham wrote before telling readers she moved out of her parents’ house at 18 after the release of her hit film “Drivers License.”
“I thought, ‘I have to get out of here, I have to be successful and I have to become a movie star,’” Graham told the WSJ of his “liberating” move to a West Hollywood apartment with a high school buddy.
Despite his long career, Graham’s disagreements with his parents over Hollywood led to a sad end.
“I stopped talking to my parents when I was 25, and I’m estranged from them now. My friends are proud of me, and I’m proud of myself. I have really good friends,” Graham said.
But she’s happy now, she says, with a house in Los Angeles and a loft in New York, telling the WSJ that she enjoys “sitting on my couch in Los Angeles at dusk, as the sun goes down and the lights come on in the city below.”
