Anthony Hopkins' new memoir, We Did OK, Kid, dropped on November 4, with bombshell revelations aplenty. Between confessions about Laurence Olivier telling him he was "being quite foolish," asking to be fired from Nixon, and his regrets over his estrangement from daughter Abigail, the two-time Oscar winner got candid about several different facets of his life, both personal and professional. In one of his more shocking admissions, though, he admits to having several affairs while he was married to Jennifer Lynton.
Jennifer, 81, was Anthony's second wife, following his rocky marriage to actress Petronella Barker from 1966-1972, which ended over his struggles with alcoholism after he'd abandoned his daughter as well. Anthony and Jennifer were married from 1973 to 2002, and the following year, he tied the knot with Stella Arroyave.
In his book, per People, the The Silence of the Lambs star, 87, wrote: "She turned a blind eye to whatever I was up to. It was only years later that she knew about my infidelities. I don't know whether she took a lover too. I rather hope she did. I would never blame her for it," adding he'd hoped she'd have found her happiness elsewhere while he cheated on her.
"It would be some consolation to know that she found some happiness in those years in spite of me," Anthony continued. "It was sad because she deserved better than me, she really did. She brought a change in my life, and I blew it. I take full responsibility for that." He further confessed that he "did not make it easy on her" during their nearly 30-year marriage, saying "she'd caught a tiger by the tail."
Anthony wrote more about what he was like after their divorce, before meeting and marrying Stella, saying: "I was on the run from rocky dealings on films, broken relationships with women, my lack of trust, a neurotic insistence on being isolated." He was experiencing a brief slump in the early 2000s before experiencing a resurgence with 2002's Red Dragon and receiving his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame the year after.
The actor also wrote about the moment he decided to leave his first family with Petronella and Abigail, writing that "after [realizing] I was unfit as a father for Abigail, I vowed not to have any more children…I couldn't do to another child what I'd done to her." While he admitted that he'd "not been a good father," he did recall trying to reconnect with her and his first wife, calling their 1977 meeting "awkward."
"They didn't want to be there," he penned. "Throughout the meal, they keep catching each other's eyes and making faces. Abigail never seems able to forgive me for leaving the family when she was a baby." He called their estrangement "the saddest fact of my life and my greatest regret… that hardness is my default…"
"I hope my daughter knows that my door is always open to her… I want her to be well and happy."