On the April 22 episode of the How to Fail podcast, Rita Wilson opened up about learning that her late father, Allan Wilson, had a secret family.
“I did this English show, Who Do You Think You Are?” she explained. “And usually in those genealogy shows, they go back many, many generations. What they found with my dad was that his story was so shocking and unusual that they stuck with his story.”
It turned out, her father was previously married and had a child that she never knew about. “I said, ‘Am I going to meet someone? Am I going to meet a family?’” Rita said. “It was a little boy. And they’re like, ‘No.’”
Wilson was informed that her father had married a woman who died three days after giving birth to a son. Then the infant died four months later.
“They were so poor,” Wilson explained. “It was right after the war [in] Bulgaria. I don’t know how they would have afforded formula or something, but I’m sure they made ways. I mean, he didn’t die from starvation; he died from an infection.”
She continued, “He never said anything to us. I wish I could have talked to him about that. They kept things so private.”
Although he kept such a large secret from her, she still spoke highly about him, saying, “He got a job as a barback in New York and worked his way up to being a bartender, and he supported a family. He bought a house. He never had debt in his life. He and my mom were married for 59 years, and they were an incredible couple and incredible parents.”
After his first marriage, he went on to marry her mother, Dorothy Wilson. They had three kids—Rita and her siblings, Chris and Lily.
