Kate Hudson is arguably one of the most famous actors in the world and also seemingly the most down-to-earth. Making her even more relatable is her dysfunctional family.
While we mostly know about her mother, the goddess Goldie Hawn, step-father, Kurt Russell (whom Kate calls “Papa”), and her brother Oliver Hudson — who star in Netflix film franchise, The Christmas Chronicles — there’s also her brother, Wyatt Russell, who has made a name for himself in Black Mirror.
But, the person we aren’t so sure about is Bill Hudson, Kate and Oliver’s biological father.
“You know what I have been thinking about lately? Dad,” she told her brother, Oliver on their Sibling Revelry podcast.
“I was thinking — I’ve been thinking a lot about Dad. I’ve been thinking about our sisters, that we don’t spend any time with, and our brother. Brothers. We’ve got four siblings we don’t spend any time with,” she said.
“I was thinking about how everybody’s getting older. I just had this moment of like, it would be nice to connect a little bit, especially with my sisters.”
Kate, who is mother to Ryder, 17, Bingham, nine, and Rani Rose, two, also said that she and Oliver say they’ve “got the best family” and they’re “so great”, yet they don’t “ever acknowledge the fact that we have four other siblings.
“So I’ve been thinking a lot about the Hudsons. Thinking that it’s important that we reach out with all of our siblings and maybe connect with them a little bit.”
Who is Bill Hudson?
William “Bill” Louis Hudson, 71, is a musician and actor, having formed The Hudson Brothers with his two brothers, Brett and Mark in 1965 and starring in the Neil Patrick Harris led series, Dougie Howser, MD.
In 1976, he married Hawn and had two children, Kate (born in 1976) and Oliver (born in 1979), before later marrying actress Cindy Williams after he and Hawn split in 1982.
Hudson shares two children from this second marriage — Emily and Zachary — and another daughter, Lalania, from another relationship.
According to interviews, Hudson was relatively absent from his first two children’s lives and on Father’s Day in 2015, Oliver posted a photo featuring himself, his father and sister, saying: “Happy abandonment day.”
“I say to them now, ‘I set you free,’” he told The Mail in June 2015. “I had five birth children but I now consider myself a father of three. I no longer recognize Oliver and Kate as my own.”
“I would ask them to stop using the Hudson name,” he continued. “They are no longer a part of my life. Oliver’s Instagram post was a malicious, vicious, premeditated attack. He is dead to me now. As is Kate. I am mourning their loss even though they are still walking this earth.” Ooft.
In an interview with Inside Edition the same week, he clarified what he meant by “dead to me”.