Heather Graham speaks candidly about being separated from her family for nearly 30 years.
‘Austin Powers’ actress opens up about family battles In an article in the Wall Street Journal On Thursday, she published an essay in which she wrote that “home and school were not happy places when I was a child.” She wrote about her father, James, an FBI agent, disapproving of her career in Hollywood.
“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 anything with sexual content.” She wrote, adding that “My parents were part of a generation that didn’t believe in therapy or discussing personal matters, so I never felt like I could talk to them.”
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In the article, Graham, 54, details her move from a Washington, D.C., suburb to Agoura Hills, California, when she was 9, where she says she didn’t “fit in.” In the article, she candidly talks about shopping at discount clothing stores, where her mother picked out her clothes, and feeling like an outcast at school.
“I looked like a 40-year-old woman when I was 15,” Graham wrote before telling readers that she moved out of her parents’ home at 18 after the release of her hit movie “Drivers License.”
“I said to myself, ‘I have to get out of here, I have to be successful, I have to be a movie star,’” Graham told the Wall Street Journal of her “liberated” move into a West Hollywood apartment with a high school classmate.
Despite her long acting career, Graham’s disagreements with her 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 home in Los Angeles and an apartment in New York City, and she told the Wall Street Journal 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.”
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