Oliver Hudson Reveals What It Was Really Like Being Raised by Goldie Hawn

Oliver Hudson is speaking candidly about the emotional implications of being raised by his mother, Goldie Hawn, and her longtime partner, Kurt Russell. The 47-year-old actor opened up on the March 18 episode of his Sibling Rivalry podcast about his upbringing, revealing that participating with the Hoffman Institute helped him drill down into some of the deeper emotions surrounding his childhood.

“I did this course called the Hoffman Institute – which was this really powerful thing for me – where you’re unpacking the patterns that were put upon you from your parents and stepparents,” Oliver said on the podcast. “This idea that we have negative love in our lives and in order to survive, we need love of some kind and sometimes it’s not healthy love but we attach ourselves to those things. This course was all about understanding what those patterns were and kind of learning how to break through them and building your toolbox.”

“I went in there thinking it was all going to be about my dad and then [Kurt Russell], my stepdad who raised me, but whatever that connection was, and then my dad who wasn’t there,” Oliver continued. “My mom was going to be easy-breezy because she was always the constant in my life. It was totally flipped on its head: my mother was the one that came up the most, my mother was the one that I had almost the most trauma about, interestingly enough.”

Hawn, 78, is mother to Oliver and Kate Hudson, 44, with ex-husband Bill Hudson, but raised her kids with longtime partner Russell, 73, since 1983. Oliver explained that it was because his mother was the stable presence in his life, as opposed to his estranged father, that his emotions surrounding her were more complicated.

“So I felt unprotected at times; she would be working and away or she had new boyfriends that I didn’t really like. She would be living her life, and she was an amazing mother,” he said. “This was my own perception as a child who didn’t have a dad and who needed her to be there, and she just wasn’t sometimes.” 

While Oliver’s dad wasn’t around much, he noted that when he did show up, it was “incredible” for him as a kid. “He paid attention to me, we played football, we played basketball, we were on the beach, he taught me how to fish,” he recalled his time with the musician and actor. “He was so present, but he was never there, you know what I mean? So it was really a perspective shifter for me.”