What to Know About Kate Hudson’s Famous Family

Kate’s mother, Goldie Hawn, is the definition of a multi-talented star. She’s not only an actor, but a singer, dancer, and producer. Similar to Kate, Hawn has been recognized for her comedy chops in various projects. For example, she first gained fame while starring in the 1968 sketch comedy series “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.” Her role in the 1969 comedy film “Cactus Flower” only made her star status rise by helping her earn both an Academy Award and Golden Globe for best supporting actress.

Thanks to her roles in “Wildcats,” “Overboard,” “Housesitter,” and “The First Wives Club” throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Hawn also went on to become a four-time nominee for funniest actress in a motion picture at the American Comedy Awards. Other notable film roles of Hawn’s over the years include “The Sugarland Express,” “Shampoo,” Private Benjamin,” and “The Banger Sisters.” Apart from her work in “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,” Hawn is also known for starring in the 1967 TV series “Good Morning World.”

Kate and Hawn are inseparable. In a January 2016 interview with POPSUGAR, Kate told us that since “there are a lot of boys” in their family, she and Hawn bond have an especially close bond as mother and daughter. “We need that energy with each other,” she said. “I pretty much talk to her every day. I can’t really go a week. I’ve gone a week, but it’s super rare.”

In fact, Kate has even goes to her mother for relationship advice. In February 2016, Kate told Entertainment Tonight that Hawn has helped remind her to be true to herself and that “you learn the most about yourself” when hitting a rough patch in a relationship.

Despite there being so many similarities in Kate and Hawn’s careers, the “Bride Wars” actor said she’s always wanted to follow her own path apart from her mother and the rest of her family.

“Contrary to how I guess it seems from the outside in, for me, our family is much more focused on emulating who we are as people,” Kate told E! News in a September 2022 interview, adding that it’s not possible to recreate her mother’s success. “There’s no emulating mama’s career. She’s an original. She’s an icon. It’s a different generation.”

Kate’s father is musician and actor Bill Hudson. He is most well-known for being a vocalist for the band The Hudson Brothers. Bill formed the group as a teenager in the 1960s with his brothers, Brett Hudson and Mark Hudson. The band went through various name changes early in their career. They were known by My Sirs, The New Yorkers, Everyday Hudson, and Hudson before they settled on their final name. In 1974, the trio starred in their own sketch comedy series called “The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show.”

After making his music breakthrough, Bill landed a few acting projects, which included the films “Zero to Sixty,” “Hysterical,” and “Big Shots,” as well as the series “The Love Boat,” “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color,” and “Doogie Howser, M.D.”

Over the years, Kate has opened up several times about how her biological father has been absent most of her life. “He was around when we were young and then it sort of teetered out,” she said in a 2016 interview on “The Howard Stern Show.”

Despite their complicated relationship, Kate said her mother “never spoke poorly of him” and understood that whatever happened between Bill and Hawn didn’t have to do with her or her brother Oliver. Kate also said she doesn’t see her father in a bad light, adding, “Those issues are just something that he has to live with and that must be painful for him and so I forgive him.”

Her comments arrived just a year after Bill publicly disowned Kate and Oliver. “I had five birth children but I now consider myself a father of three. I no longer recognize Oliver and Kate as my own,” Bill told the Daily Mail after Oliver posted a shady Father’s Day Instagram calling out Bill for “abandoning” his children. “I would ask them to stop using the Hudson name. They are no longer a part of my life.”

Kate’s stepfather is none other than Kurt Russell. The star began his extensive acting career at just 12 years old when he starred in the western TV series “The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters” in 1963. Russell also made several TV appearances early on in his career in shows like “Dennis the Menace,” “The Eleventh Hour,” “Daniel Boone,” and “Gilligan’s Island.” He added to his acting credits by starring in several films by Walt Disney Productions throughout the 1960s and 1970s like “The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes,” “Now You See Him, Now You Don’t,” and “The Strongest Man in the World.”

From the late 1970s to the late 1990s, Russell led the John Carpenter-directed films “Escape From New York,” “Escape From LA,” “The Thing,” “Big Trouble In Little China,” and “Elvis.” Since then, Russell has become more of a household name by starring in the “Fast and Furious” franchise, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2,” and “The Christmas Chronicles” films.

Kate has known Russell almost her entire life, so it’s no wonder she’s always viewed him as her father. “I have a stepfather who stepped in and played a huge, huge part in sharing what it is to have a dependable father figure in our life,” Kate said in a 2016 interview on “The Howard Stern Show,” adding that he was always there for her through all “the hard stuff” in her life. “Kurt is not a perfect man – no one is. But that trust I got from him in terms of his dependability was just priceless for me.”

Unsurprisingly, Hawn and Russell met on the set of a movie. In 1968, both stars appeared in the comedy musical film “The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band.” As you can probably tell by the title, the movie centers around a family band. Russell played the role of Sidney Bower, while Hawn is credited as playing a “Giggly Girl.”

Hawn opened up about their first meeting in a 2012 interview with Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4. “I was 21 and he was 16 and I thought he was adorable but he was much too young,” she said, via People. “And then years later we met up again and I liked him and I remembered that I liked him very much when I first met him. But we both said we would never go out with another actor so it just shows you never can tell.”

The actors reunited over a decade later in 1983 on the set of the film “Swing Shift,” and that’s when they began dating. Since then, the couple has starred alongside each other in the 1987 rom-com “Overboard” and the 2018 and 2020 films “The Christmas Chronicles” and “The Christmas Chronicles 2.”