“At school they call me coronavirus”: the boy named Corona to whom Tom Hanks wrote a moving letter

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American actor Tom Hanks wrote an emotional letter to an 8-year-old boy who says he is being bullied for being called Corona.

Corona De Vries, from the Gold Coast, Australia, had written a letter to the Hollywood star and his wife, Rita Wilson, who contracted the new coronavirus in early March, asking them if they were okay.

It also said in it: “I love my name, but at school they call me coronavirus”.

“It saddens me and bothers me a lot when they call me those things,” wrote the boy.

• Tom Hanks reveals he has coronavirus and will be isolated with his wife in Australia

“Dear friend Corona”

In response, Hanks also sent a letter to the little boy, whom he called “dear friend Corona”

“Your letter made my wife and I very happy. Thanks for being such a good friend. Friends make their friends feel good when they are not, “wrote the winner of two Oscars and four Golden Globes.

“You are the only person I have ever known who is called Corona, like the ring around the sun, like a crown,” he added.

The letter was also typed on a L.C. Smith & Corona Typewriters Inc., which Hanks used during his quarantine time in Australia.

And Hanks decided to give it to the boy.

“I thought this typewriter would do you good”, he explained in the letter. “I had taken it to the Gold Coast and now it’s back there with you. Ask someone older how it works. And use it to write to me again,” he invited.

According to Corona’s family, the little boy had wanted to contact Hanks for meeting him by shabering Woody in the Toy Story movies.

And at the end of the letter, Hanks said goodbye to a phrase with which he had reference to the name of the popular song of the film.

“You got a friend in ME!” (“I am your faithful friend”).

“A new friend”

Hanks and Wilson are already back in the United States after spending nearly three weeks recovering from covid-19 in Australia, where they are believed they got the coronavirus.

The couple had traveled to Australia for Wilson to give a series of concerts and because Hanks was starting to shoot a biographical film about Elvis Presley, directed by Baz Luhrmann.

And the De Vries family said on the Australian channel Nine News that the boy was excited to have “a new friend in America”.

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