Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson have an enviable sibling bond where they can talk about anything and everything.
The two actors are the children of actress Goldie Hawn and ex-husband Bill Hudson. Hawn and Bill split in 1980, nearly 35 years before he publicly disowned Kate and Oliver. In a 2015 interview with the Daily Mail, Bill claimed his children should stop using his last name after Oliver jokingly referred to Father’s Day as “Abandonment Day” on social media.
Kate and Oliver, meanwhile, have made peace with the family estrangement and remained close to both Hawn and her longtime partner, Kurt Russell.
Despite being raised side-by-side, Kate and Oliver have noticed differences in how they are parenting the next generation. (They are each parents of three. Oliver shares his kids with wife Erinn Bartlett, while Kate coparents Ryder with Chris Robinson, Bingham with Matt Bellamy and Rani Rose with fiancé Danny Fujikawa.)
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“We have different ideas. There’s a core for sure of just wanting our kids to be good human beings, be polite and understand that they’re very lucky people to be born into the sort of family we’re born into … but it’s sort of the way that we go about doing things,” Oliver exclusively told Us Weekly in March 2021. “What we let our kids watch, the freedoms we allow them. We’re different in that way.”
While they handle parenthood “differently,” Oliver added, “If I feel like I need to speak up, I will. She does as well.”
Keep scrolling to read Oliver and Kate’s candid quotes about their family and growing up:
February 2016
“I think we both probably suffered differently and very similarly to anybody who feels abandoned by a parent,” Kate said on Jenny McCarthy’s SiriusXM show when asked if she and Oliver were “abandoned” by Bill. “We can have a sense of humor about it together. We can laugh at the challenges that we faced because of it — together. To be honest, our dad, who we don’t know very well, is really funny. So, it’s funny because, you know, it’s a catch-22.”
She added, “There’s a part of that, our dad actually, from what I remember when we were younger, had a great sense of humor. When we laugh about our father, we go, ‘We probably got that from him.’”
May 2018
Three years after Bill disowned Kate and Oliver, they made amends. During an appearance on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, Oliver admitted that he had reconnected with his biological father.
“I just had lunch with my dad a few weeks ago,” he said, crediting WWHL with the reunion. “Because we talked about [my show appearance]. And it made him text me, and then we reconnected, and we had breakfast and then it was six months later and we had lunch about two weeks ago.” He continued, “It’s great, it’s been really great.”
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April 2021
Regardless of Kate and Oliver’s relationship with Bill, they remain tight with Hawn and Russell.
“My parents are amazing grandparents,” Oliver gushed to Us. “We’re a very tight family. We all live very close to each other. … They’re amazing people, amazing grandparents, amazing parents.
January 2024
Kate and Oliver cohost a podcast called “Sibling Revelry,” where they interview other famous sets of siblings. During a January episode, Kate got candid about her estrangement with Bill’s other children. (Bill shares Emily and Zachary with Cindy Williams and Lalania with Caroline Graham.)
“I had this moment last year where I was like, ‘I don’t know why I don’t talk to my other siblings,’” the How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days star said. “I don’t care what the history is with our parents … I have two sisters that I don’t speak to for no other reason than our family is separated. My sister and I and my brother have all just started communicating again.”
Kate noted that she recently spoke to one of her sisters on the phone and they “started bawling [their] eyes out.”
March 2024
During a March episode of “Sibling Revelry,” Oliver admitted that he had some lingering “trauma” from living with single mom Hawn.
“I did this course called the Hoffman Institute — which was this really powerful thing for me — where you’re unpacking the patterns that were put upon you from your parents and stepparents,” he said. “This idea that we have negative love in our lives and in order to survive, we need love of some kind and sometimes it’s not healthy love but we attach ourselves to those things. This course was all about understanding what those patterns were and kind of learning how to break through them and building your toolbox.”
Oliver continued: “My mother was the one that I had almost the most trauma about interestingly enough because she was my primary caregiver and I was with her all of the time. I felt unprotected at times. She would be working. She had new boyfriends that I didn’t really like. She would be living her life and she was an amazing mother. This is my own perception as a child who didn’t have a dad and needed her to be there and she just wasn’t sometimes and she came out far more than even my dad who wasn’t there.”
April 2024
After Oliver’s “trauma” comments made headlines, he clarified that he has nothing but love and respect for his mom. “If you listen to the whole thing, it’s more about my child feelings in that moment rather than me and how I feel about Mom as a parent,” he explained during the April 1 episode of his “Sibling Revelry” podcast. “I don’t know who I would be without my mother. I can’t even fathom it. The love that I have for her and the respect and the reverence that I have for her is beyond anything. So, it was just completely taken out of context.”
Oliver went on to explain that when he originally used the word “trauma,” he was referring to emotions he experienced as a child — not how he feels now. “You say that word and immediately it inflames everything,” he continued. “There was no trauma coming from my mother, the way she raised me, in any way whatsoever. You’re speaking from a 5, 6-year-old perspective — that’s what I was doing. Without her, again, I’d be nothing.”
November 2024
Oliver revealed on one of their podcast episodes that Kurt once offered to adopt the two siblings.
“Kurt came into my life when I was 5 or 6 and essentially he raised me. I’m the man I am today because of him, right?” Oliver recalled. “There was a moment when he asked us, myself and Kate, if we wanted to be adopted, and we said no.”
He added, “Not that we were — you know, very aware of probably what it even f—— meant. We were 6 and 12 or however, I don’t remember the age, but we just said, ‘Well, we don’t need it. The love is right there.’”
