Kate Hudson has learned a thing or two about co-parenting thanks to her three kids and their dads.
She recently opened up about her complex family dynamics, including with her own mom, Goldie Hawn, in a conversation with TODAY's Willie Geist, aired Sunday.
"I've got multiple dads, I've got kids all over the place," she said, laughing.
The "How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days" star, 41, shares son Ryder, 17, with ex-husband Chris Robinson, and son Bingham, 9, with ex-fiancé Matt Bellamy. She also welcomed a daughter, Rani Rose, with boyfriend Danny Fujikawa in 2018.
"The only expectations I really have that are really high on my life is with my kids and with family stuff," she continued to Willie. "Other than that, it's like, I just let it go. ... I work my a-- off, and then I walk away, and I hope for the best."
But Hudson's also found staying at home with her family due to the COVID-19 epidemic challenging at times.
"I wanna be, like, 'Yeah, it's so great and ... we're figuring out,' but the reality is that there are days that are great, and there's days that I have to remind myself to be grateful," the Fabletics co-founder explained. "I never thought in a million years that I'd spend a year in one place. And when you have so many kids, sometimes you have those moments where you're hiding in your bathroom going, 'Please, please, get me out of here!'"
"I just remind myself there's a lot of people out there who have lost their loved ones, and we just gotta stay in for a bit," she added.
Although Hudson has close relationships with her own kids, she grew up not knowing her own father, musician and actor Bill Hudson. She and her brother, actor Oliver Hudson, were raised by Hawn and her longtime partner, Kurt Russell.
"I think that estrangement is unfortunately quite common," she told Willie. "I think it's important for people to talk about that. If they can't reconnect or if it's too challenging, that it's OK, right?
"It's a 41-year-old issue," she continued, referring to her own father. "I have a great family. I have a beautiful mother. 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. But it doesn't take away from the fact that we didn't know our dad.
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"I think as I've sort of gone through that process ... I kind of look at my dad and I'm, like, 'You know, the love has never ever gone anywhere. It's always been there, no matter what those complications have been. And healing is ... personal, and I think people sometimes just need to hear that they're not alone in that."
Hudson often reflects on these issues in her podcast, "Sibling Revelry," which she hosts with her brother Oliver Hudson. But long before she became a prominent podcaster, she had her first major success with the 2000 cult classic film "Almost Famous."
"It was definitely a whirlwind," she recalled. "It was almost like that year of my life was — people would ask me all the time, 'How does it feel? How does it feel?' Everything was happening so fast in that moment ... and I didn't even have time to digest any of it. And then my life, it was just work, work, work."
"From the outside, it might not have seemed as grounded as it actually was," she continued. "But yeah, I mean, shot out of the cannon is basically what it was."
Some 20 years later, the Golden Globe winner is starring in the upcoming film "Music," which comes out in February and tells the story of a drug dealer, played by Hudson, who becomes the caretaker of her teenage half sister, who has autism. It's directed by pop musician Sia.
"We call it a musical experience," Hudson said. "I think it's a piece of art. I mean, that's what Sia's intention was. Her intention was to make a movie about love, about finding love, about feeling worthy of love."
She's now at work filming the second season Apple TV+ drama "Truth Be Told" opposite Oscar winner Octavia Spencer, and the safety protocols due to the coronavirus are "very strict," including masks and face shields, she said.
"I was looking at us the other day with all of our s--- on, and I'm, like, 'God, we're nuts,'" she quipped. "Like, we're shooting a show in the middle of a pandemic, and so happy to be at work."
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