Eric André wants to see Chet Hanks' birth certificate

Few pop culture figures embrace their status as a force of chaos more aggressively than Eric André, who, for six seasons on Adult Swim, has run the most anarchic “talk show” on television, The Eric André Show Now, he’s apparently feuding with Tom Hanks’ son Chet, after an appearance by the rapper on the series, joking in a recent interview that “I don’t believe he’s Tom Hanks’s son. I want him to fucking come down here and show us his birth certificate.”

André was talking to The Independent, giving one of those interviews that reminds us that, while, the “Eric André” he plays on the show—rampaging through his studio, ruthlessly interrogating guests with absurd questions, and killing desks with aplomb—might be a character, it is a character that he’s very, very committed to. (He also apparently writhed around on the floor during the video call, and instructed interviewer Louis Chilton not to “get all coy on me like a geisha girl.”)

André and the younger Hanks have been poking back and forth at each other on social media of late, after Hanks did an interview for the series that, at least as presented, appears to be pretty far along the “disastrous Eric André Show interview” spectrum. (At one point, André asks Hanks—who does not want to be called Chet Haze any more, apparently—“What other cultures have you considered integrating into your personality?”) Hanks, for his part, called André a “pussy” on social media, claiming he was just trying to match the show’s tone by, among other things, getting on a dirt bike another performer had been using, despite protests from the show’s staff.

Hanks is still facing allegations of domestic assault that surfaced in 2021; he’s currently in the midst of a legal battle with ex-girlfriend Kiana Parker over the allegations.