Chet Hanks Opened Up About Being Taken to a Youth Wildnerness Camp as a Teenager

Unlike other reality shows with celebrities, The Surreal Life has always been one that allows its stars to share intimate details of their lives in a comfortable, non-competitive setting. That's not to say the secret missions totally do away with a competition, but when Chet Hanks bares all and shares details of his wilderness camp experience as a teenager, it proves that the series is certainly different from other celebrity competition reality shows.

Chet has opened up about his experience before, but for those who aren't aware, he was sent to a retreat as a teenager to correct what was perceived at the time as bad or out of control behavior. Paris Hilton has famously opened up about her own experience with this, and there's even a Netflix docuseries called Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare that details similar experiences of kids who went through what Chet details on the show.

On The Surreal Life: Villa of Secrets, Chet explains how he was woken up in the middle of the night, around 4 a.m., when he was in high school, to do big men standing at the foot of his bed. He says that he was taken on a drive that lasted hours into the desert and that he "tried to escape," but it didn't work. These wilderness camps, which are advertised as therapy camps for youth, are marketed toward parents as a way to control behavior.

And for Chet, this meant his parents had secretly turned to this for him. But as an adult, he understands why they did it. In February 2022, Chet detailed his experience in a video on his YouTube channel. In it, he made it clear that he doesn't blame his parents for sending him to the wilderness camp or for forcing him into the program.

"I was completely out of control and I gave them no choice," he said in his video. "It wasn't just substances and partying that I was getting in trouble with. I was doing other reckless stuff that was a lot more dangerous and they 100 percent made the right decision."

He went on in his video, which came out before he revealed his wilderness camp experience on The Surreal Life, to explain that a lot of the therapy work involved hiking for hours every day with a pack on his back that weighed 80 pounds. Chet explained that he and the other kids in the program had to ask permission to use the bathroom, they had to earn the right to sit in a chair rather than the dirt by being willing to tell on other kids for poor behavior, and he experienced an initial period of being totally alone.

Because Chet explained in his video that he understands how reckless his behavior was at the time of his entry into the wilderness program and that he doesn't blame his parents, it doesn't sound like he holds it against his dad, Tom Hanks, for enrolling him in the retreat. In fact, he spoke with E! News in July 2024 about what his dad said about him going into The Surreal Life house.

"They were, like, totally supportive of it," Chet Hanks said, of his family's reaction to him filming the show. "The Surreal Life is like a different kind of show." He added that they're "definitely going to watch."

Watch The Surreal Life on Wednesdays at 9 p.m. EST on MTV.