Oliver Hudson has been married to actress Erinn Bartlett since 2006, which is a long time in Hollywood years. They have three kids together, Wilder Brooks, 16, Bodhi Hawn, 13, and Rio Laura, 10. Oliver also does a podcast with his sister Kate called Sibling Revelry. On this week’s episode, they had Robyn Lively (Blake’s sister) on as a guest. During their discussion, Oliver shared that after he got engaged to Erinn in 2004, he “spiraled” and cheated on her. Despite not getting caught by his then-fiancé, he confessed and promptly went to work to become a better partner and man.
“When I got engaged, something happened psychologically, and I spiraled, and I was unfaithful, and I was cheating, and I was crazy,” Oliver told guest Robyn Lively, who is actress Blake Lively’s sister.
“I never got caught. I told her everything because I couldn’t live with myself and get married and be married and have children with this sort of weight.”
The “Rules of Engagement” actor said he had to get through it “psychologically” before he became the man Bartlett deserved.
“And my mother played a big part in it as well,” he said of his and Kate’s mom Goldie Hawn. “Where it’s about looking at the entirety and the totality of the relationship, not just the action.”
“Even though it might seem extreme, let’s dig in a little bit into why and looking at the whole person rather than this one affliction,” he said, adding that he’s a “good man” who is “not malicious.”
“I was going through whatever I was going through and we were able to sort of therapy and do all of it and get through it,” he continued. “And honestly, if that didn’t happen I don’t know what kind of a person I would be. So do I regret it? I mean no, I guess not. I regret causing pain. I don’t want to cause anyone any pain.”
Lively then asked him if he had any regrets.
“Regret is an interesting word,” Oliver responded. “I’m not sure I have many regrets because if I didn’t, it was a choice that I made, whether it was a positive one or a negative one.”
“I’ve made some horrible, horrible choices in my life just generally. You would think I regret doing that, but I don’t know who I would be if I didn’t make that choice,” he added.
Wow, good on Oliver for taking responsibility for his actions and putting in the work to be a better husband. I like that he took the attitude of ”I don’t know who I would be if I didn’t make that choice” to indicate personal growth instead of taking some BS way out or blaming others for his actions. Cheating is sh-tty and selfish, and no one deserves that disrespect.
As for “Where it’s about looking at the entirety and the totality of the relationship, not just the action,” I know for some people, cheating is an instant deal breaker and for others, it’s a bump in the road. People are complicated and sometimes good people do bad things. What defines a person is how they handle, learn, and grow from their transgressions, and yes, I am referring to specific cases like Oliver and Erinn. There’s no one size fits all for how to handle a situation like theirs, but it goes without saying that if you’re with a chronic cheater, the only answer is to dump their ass.
Photos credit: Michael Simon/startraksphoto.com, PacificCoastNews / Avalon, Getty
She’s a better person than I could ever be in that situation. He flunked the most basic of marriage tests before they even got married. In my shoes, if someone can’t even stay faithful while we’re engaged, I sure as he11 wouldn’t trust them to do so when we’re married.
Yeah, I’m one of those people who view cheating as the ultimate deal breaker. I could never fully trust someone who didn’t respect me or themselves. I can’t even stand to read about it in books.
I side-eye anyone who says he has no regrets.
Cheating is an immediate dealbreaker for me. That said, other people’s relationships and choices are their own. However, no, Oliver Hudson, you don’t get a cookie for being a super successful groveler after you cheated on your fiancé. You got away with it. That’s the best that can be said.
Did he seriously blame Goldie with no further details?
I read that as Goldie was the one who encouraged the wider perspective to consider the totality of the relationship, not one incident of cheating. This jives with how I see Goldie’s philosophy & why she & Kurt Russell have had such a successful relationship.
Ahhh, thank you! That makes sense.
Not sure why everyone is acting like this is news. A couple of years he ago he had errin cohost with him when Kate was out, and they had at least two episodes devoted to the entire situation. In fact Erinn mostly tells it from her side with some input from Oliver. They obviously worked through it in a way that works for them now.
I don’t think most of us would know this as previously talked about news. He’s not really that famous.
But if he and his wife have talked about it before, that gives further context as to why he’s discussing it here.
Articles should involve fact checking and research. That’s where the responsibility lies—maybe not on you or any regular media consuming person—but with those disseminating the information. That used to be a given!
So if outlets are sharing this as a tidbit without fact-checking or doing any other background research….
Honestly I think I’m just more worked up that standards for journalism (yes, pop culture counts as journalism!) have devolved in general. That’s really what it is. This tiny meaningless tidbit about Oliver that I’ve seen presented as “breaking” on several outlets is just a symptom, you know? Sorry, being an Eeyore about it.
Hi, M! Thank you for your feedback! 🙂 You are totally right about research and fact-checking. When I did a search yesterday to see if this was old news, the first two pages of Google were all just reporting on the most recent news. So, I decided to keep it fairly straight-forward and discuss the quotes from the Robyn Lively episode and hopefully not give the impression that I was speaking with authority that it was brand new information. If it did not come off that way, then that’s on me. I’m sorry!
Using your parameters that they shared it on a podcast a few years back while Kate was out, I did find it now. If anyone would like to listen to that discussion, it was on the July 9, 2021 ep of Sibling Revelry: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/sibling-revelry-with-kate-huds-935716/episodes/special-guest-erinn-hudson-oli-94636082
It’s their business. I don’t have judgement on their relationship. But if I were I don’t think I would want these details shared with the public. Keeping it between ourselves would work better for me. I might not dump him for cheating (well, yeah, maybe I would) , but I might dump him telling the world!
It’s their business. I don’t have a judgement on their relationship. But if I were her, I don’t think I would want these details shared with the public. Keeping it between ourselves would work better for me. I might not dump him for cheating (well, yeah, maybe I would) , but I might dump him for telling the world!
No comment on the actual story, but I love that their child is named Wilder. My son is 10, and he’s also named Wilder! It’s my maiden name, but I love that it was not too out there to be a first name because of some celebrities who came before. 🙂
I think there is a difference between being bad without repentance versus stepping over a line, realizing pretty quickly that this means something has gone very wrong and stepping back and making life changes to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Humans are fallible and honestly I often trust the sinners more than the saints in some of these situations. Judgementalism can be a hell of a drug.
I can completely understand that cheating is a deal breaker or very triggering for many people, but I do think there are worse things than cheating. And not everyone who cheats will do it again. Couples can and do work through these things all the time.
BUT – if your partner is not committed to honesty, respect, and working through whatever caused them to cheat on the first place, run like hell. Cause that means the cheating was a symptom of a bigger problem.
Controversial opinion:
If you cheat on your partner, and it was a one off and you feel bad about it, then live with the guilt and work to become a better person. Your guilt can be your deserved punishment. Don’t unburden by passing on the pain to your partner who then has to do the work to forgive and get over it.
Actually, I don’t find this to be all that controversial. This whole attitude of “ confession is good for the soul” can sometimes seem cruel to me. The cheater manages to assuage some of their guilt by exporting the pain to their partner, who receives the equivalent of an emotional drive-by shooting.
I definitely hear what you’re saying but I think it depends on the person. For a selfish person, the confession might feel purely cathartic and relieving but I think for a lot of people the confession would be soul-crushing. Most of us don’t enjoy telling the person we love that we betrayed them–it doesn’t feel good. Just thinking about telling my husb that I had an affair makes my stomach hurt and my heart ache–I would absolutely hate myself. Yet it IS the right decision to be honest because as Lady Rae says below, the worst would be finding out from someone else.
What if your partner finds out though and it hasn’t come from you? I do understand the selfishness of unloading that onto your partner.
“Don’t unburden by passing on the pain to your partner who then has to do the work to forgive and get over it.”
I don’t agree. If my partner has done something that could change my willingness to stay in the relationship — and for me, cheating would be would be one of those behaviors — I think I have the right to know.
Same if they fell in love with someone else, even if nothing happened. If my partner is completely fixated on someone else, I need to know.
The cheating gives me the ick. What I find unusual is that he apparently was not caught, but felt guilty about it and confessed, and they were open to therapy and working things out. That’s less common.
This I still don’t like or understand: “So do I regret it? I mean no, I guess not. I regret causing pain. I don’t want to cause anyone any pain.” Regretting causing someone pain is different than regretting cheating.
I understood it to mean that he hates that he hurt her but doesn’t regret the act itself because it was the catalyst that led them to therapy and a deeper understanding of each other.
Why do we need to know this? I’m middle aged and crabby but I really think this should be between the two of them-not as an anecdote for entertainment. I don’t have a judgement on their relationship-however that went down, and they worked it out-that’s their business.