Anthony Hopkins Is Estranged from Daughter Abigail, Who Also Works in Film

Family relationships can be anything but simple. Especially when there's something external working on the relationship, like life stressors, or even addiction.

And when you're a celebrity, things become even more complicated as you add the pressures of fame, demands on your time, and access to a lifestyle most people can't reach.

This kind of complication once wrapped legendary actor Anthony Hopkins up in a web of self-destruction that led to his eventual estrangement from his daughter, Abigail Hopkins. Here's what we know about why the two are estranged and how his self-destructive spiral led to his greatest regret.

Most of the world knows Anthony Hopkins for his extraordinarily famous roles in films such as The Silence of the Lambs. They might know that he's talented and well-spoken. They might even know that he was knighted in 1993, but later had to renounce his knighthood when he moved to America (per Business Insider).

But they probably don't know the private battles he wrestled with for years.

In a November 2025 interview with Today, Anthony opened up about how alcoholism robbed him of a portion of his life and led to his greatest regret: estrangement from his daughter, Abigail. He wrote about it in his memoir titled We Did OK, Kid, which was published in 2025.

In the book, he wrote, “Liquor was beginning to take over my life." He later encountered "the ugly side of alcoholism," which he says, "brought out a brutal monster side of me."

He explained to Today, "[Alcoholism is the] most interesting battle I’ve fought. It cost me everything. I lost friends. Marriages." And, he added, his relationship with his only daughter. According to Anthony, he abandoned his daughter and his first wife, saying, "[The decision to walk out was] my greatest regret, and yet I feel absolutely sure that it would have been much worse for everyone if I’d stayed.”

In his book, Anthony recalled the marriage that produced his daughter. He was married to Petronella Barker at the time, a relationship he described as "doomed" due to their "opposing personalities" and his alcoholism.

He added, "By the time we realized how awful a match we were, Barker was pregnant. We tried to rally for the sake of the child we were about to have, but it was no use. The marriage was a disaster" (excerpts via People).

Anthony wrote of a night when he returned home late, and Petronella mocked him with the title "Mr. Lord High and Mighty." Anthony recalls, “I had never been physically violent, but in that moment, I was filled with such revulsion that I became afraid for both myself and her.”

And so he walked out. Anthony writes of looking down at his 14-month-old daughter in her room: “I looked down at her and whispered goodbye. Then I walked back to the hall, picked up my suitcases, and left the house.”

He says it broke his heart to be estranged, and they have only occasionally been able to reconcile through the years.

Anthony shared, "Abigail never seemed able to forgive me for leaving the family when she was a baby. She had her reasons. I can’t blame her for that. It broke my heart.”