Why Goldie Hawn's Daughter Initially Struggled To Accept Kurt Russell: 'A Lot To Handle'

When Goldie Hawn's troubled relationship with Bill Hudson ended in September 1980, her children were very young. Oliver Hudson was about to celebrate his 4th birthday, while Kate Hudson was 1. Hawn began dating Kurt Russell less than a year after the divorce was finalized in March 1982, bringing a new man into her kids' lives when they were 6 and 4. Hawn and Russell may have gone on to have a decades-long relationship, but Oliver and Kate had no way of knowing this.

Kate, in particular, was wary of the "Stargate" actor, largely because she didn't know how Russell and his son, Boston, would fit into her life. "At the time, it was like, 'Is this going to be my dad?'" she revealed on her and Oliver's podcast "Sibling Revelry" (via People). "And I was meeting his son [Boston], which meant, 'Does this mean that this is my brother?' It was a lot to handle at such a young age." But it turned out that the "Almost Famous" star had nothing to worry about.

Kate and Russell went on to forge a beautiful daughter-father bond that she loves to gush about. "He gave me the gift of confidence instilling a knowingness in me that I deserved everything I worked for and I knew that he'd always have my back in whatever challenges may lay ahead," she captioned an Instagram post in honor of his 70th birthday in March 2021. Kate, who calls Russell her "Pa," found in her mother's partner the father figure she had been lacking. 

Goldie Hawn's marriage to Bill Hudson (seen above) didn't end on the best terms. As a result, Oliver Hudson and Kate Hudson were raised with little influence from their biological father, leading to lifelong estrangement. In 2024, Kate revealed just how little contact she had with Bill when asked about the status of their relationship. "I don't really have one," she said on "CBS Sunday Morning."  The relationship had been strained for a long time.

In June 2015, Oliver marked Father's Day with a scathing Instagram post that didn't go unnoticed by Bill. "Happy abandonment day... @katehudson," he wrote under a photo of Bill with his two young children. The former Hudson Brothers lead singer was furious. "I had five birth children but I now consider myself a father of three. I no longer recognize Oliver and Kate as my own," he told the Daily Mail that year. It wasn't exactly the most mature way of handling the situation, and he didn't stop there.

Bill accused Hawn of purposefully poisoning his relationship with his children after she got together with Kurt Russell. "She never had a bad word to say about me. But when Kurt came on the scene, the narrative changed and I became the big, bad wolf," Bill said. However, Kate noted they have since made considerable progress in mending their relationship. "It's warming up. There's warming up with this all happening," she said in her interview, adding, "I just want him to be happy."