Father of the year! Oliver Hudson loves to goof around with his three kids — even if it sometimes causes conflict with his extended family.
“[My sister, Kate Hudson, and I] haven’t gotten into many fights … as adults,” the Nashville alum confessed during a January 2022 appearance on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen. “It’s more about kids. I’m very loosey goosey, and she’s very strict.”
The Splitting Up Together alum shares three children — sons Wilder and Bodhi and daughter Rio — with wife Erinn Bartlett, whom he wed in June 2006. While Oliver and the Almost famous star — who shares son Ryder with ex-husband Chris Robinson, son Bingham with ex-fiancé Matt Bellamy, and daughter Rani with fiancé Danny Fujikawa — raise their families with the same values, they approach parenting from very different perspectives.
“There’s a core for sure of just wanting our kids to be good human beings, be polite and understand that they’re very lucky people to be born into the sort of family we’re born into … but it’s sort of the way that we go about doing things,” the Rules of Engagement alum told Us Weekly exclusively in March 2021. “What we let our kids watch, the freedoms we allow them. We’re different in that way. … If I need to speak up, I will. She will as well.”
The Cleaning Lady actor has earned a reputation as the “cool uncle” to Kate’s little ones thanks to the more permissive rules he and Bartlett have in their house. “I let my kids watch movies that I probably shouldn’t, so when Kate’s kids come to my house, I’m sure they’re pretty excited because I let them watch things that Kate will not let them watch,” he told Us in November 2018. “[It’s] worth the risk. You need an uncle that’s gonna let them do things.”
Oliver has chronicled many of his family’s adventures on social media over the years, even showing off his daughter’s makeover skills in April 2022. “What do you call the eye [look], like butterfly or something?” the Going Greek actor asked in a clip shared via Instagram at the time, as Rio brushed his hair into two pigtails. “It’s a wing. Winged eyeliner,” she replied before giving her father one last bit of blush.
“The hair is … interesting,” the Grown Ups 2 actor added, while his youngest child giggled in the background. “Looks pretty good.”
In addition to helping Rio hone her makeup skills, the Dawson’s Creek alum is just as happy to get down and dirty with his sons when they decide to hit the bike trails. “[Wilder is] so badass on his mountain bike that it brings up anger that I have to suppress while trying to keep up with him as he’s flies 15 feet in the air,” Hudson wrote via Instagram in August 2019 after an excursion with his oldest son. “And then says ‘Why are you so slow and scared Dad?’ and then I say, ‘Don’t you EVER talk to a pro like that!! EVER!!!!’ and then he says, ‘Whatever dad.. Lemme know when you take off your training wheels..’ And then he rides off and I watch his silhouette rise and fall in the dipping sun and I smile.”
Keep scrolling to see more of Oliver’s sweet and hilarious family moments: