Oliver Hudson has dropped a bombshell about the life-changing offer Kurt Russell once made to him and his sister, actress Kate Hudson, when they were younger, and it would have legally made him their father.
On the podcast he shares with his sister, Sibling Revelry, Oliver, 48, opened up about his complicated childhood and the pivotal role Russell played in raising him after their biological dad, musician Bill Hudson, walked out of the picture.
“Kurt came into my life when I was five or six and essentially, he raised me. I’m the man I am today because of him,” Oliver said of Russell, who has been his mom Goldie Hawn‘s partner since 1983.
But even though the veteran actor, 73, was a good father figure to him and Kate, 45, Oliver said they rejected his offer to adopt them early on. “There was a moment when he asked us, myself and Kate, if we wanted to be adopted, and we said no,” he said.
Explaining why they rejected the offer, Hudson clarified that it was not due to a lack of love for the Escape from New York actor. Instead, he suggested that it was about loyalty and the complex emotions surrounding their estranged biological father.
“The love was there with Kurt, there’s no doubt. He’s my dad. I call him Pa. But there was always, not something missing, but there’s that other side,” Hudson said.
Regarding his biological dad, Hudson bluntly said Bill was mostly never around for him when he was a kid, but they are now in a good place. “My dad, he was around for a little bit, then he bailed. We have a good relationship now, but it took a long, long, long, long time, but we’re there.”
Russell and Hawn, who famously never married, have been a Hollywood power couple for over four decades. Together, they raised Oliver, Kate, and their own son Wyatt, 38. Russell also has a son from his failed marriage to former actress Season Hubley, Boston, 44.
Interestingly, it wasn’t just Bill who was not present during the childhood years of the famous siblings. Oliver confessed on the podcast in April that he also had a hard time establishing a relationship with their mom.
Hudson said he “felt unprotected at times” because Hawn, 79, was either busy with work or preoccupied with dating. He even admitted that he did not like the other guys her mom was seeing at the time.
“She was an amazing mother. [But] 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 there sometimes, and she came out far more than even my dad who wasn’t there,” he explained.
Meanwhile, his relationship with Bill remained a rollercoaster. While Oliver has worked hard to forgive his dad for “bailing” on him and his sister, the scars of abandonment run deep. “When I was with him, it was incredible. He paid attention to me. … but he just was never there,” he said.
Bill, for his part, has admitted that he is still trying to rebuild bridges with his children, telling Us Weekly earlier this year that he’s letting things evolve naturally instead of pushing it too hard on his kids.
“There’s no pressure. We’re just letting it be what it will be. Because no one is pushing it, there’s no turmoil or issues. A lot went down, and we aren’t revisiting it. No one wants to rehash the past,” he said.
In spite of the twists and turns of the Hollywood family’s saga, one thing is clear: love, in all its forms, has kept the Hawn-Russell-Hudson clan together, and their wounds will continue to heal, along with their relationships, from here on out.