Kurt Russell has finally spoken up about the row between his step-kids and their biological father.
Asked at Comic-Con about the now-famous Fathers’ Day posts on Instagram by Oliver and Kate Hudson, Russell said, “I understood Oliver’s sense of humor and since then, there’s been some nice back and forth between Bill and Oliver that’s nice to see.”
The whole mess started when Oliver Hudson posted a pair of pics to Instagram for Fathers’ Day. The first was obviously directed toward his biological father, Goldie Hawn’s first husband, Bill Hudson.
The picture showed a young Oliver and his sister Kate with Bill Hudson between them. But it was stingingly captioned:
“Happy abandonment day”
Oliver Hudson’s post was followed shortly thereafter by another, this one praising Kurt Russell.
Kate Hudson backed that up with an Instagram post of her own, this one too praising Kurt Russell as her “Pa.”
Bill Hudson responded in an interview with the Daily Mail, effectively disowning his kids. He blamed Goldie Hawn for turning his kids against him after she started a relationship with Kurt Russell. Hudson and Hawn divorced in 1980. Hawn and Russell got together in 1983.
“Goldie wanted to create this myth of a perfect family with Kurt and she wanted me out,” Bill Hudson said.
“When we split up, she never had a bad word to say about me,’” he says. “But when Kurt came on the scene, the narrative changed and I became the big, bad wolf. I would say to her ‘Goldie, why are you trashing me and saying I’m an absent father when it’s simply not the case?’ and she’d laugh and go ‘Oh Bill, you know it makes for a better story.’”
Bill Hudson’s response to his kids’ social media posts, especially Oliver’s was public and scathing.
“I say to them now, ‘I set you free,’” he said. “I had five birth children but I now consider myself a father of three. I no longer recognize Oliver and Kate as my own. I would ask them to stop using the Hudson name. They are no longer a part of my life. Oliver’s Instagram post was a malicious, vicious, premeditated attack. He is dead to me now. As is Kate. I am mourning their loss even though they are still walking this earth.”
Kurt Russell says this as more a humorous post, but that all involved have had to see it played out in the public eye.
“You want people to enjoy life as much as they can,” Kurt Russell says. “We live in a world that if you say something or do something, it can be latched onto [you] for 24 hours or 48 hours.”
