Kate Hudson's Romantic History: The Life-Changing Loves, the Fun Flings and the Fantastical Headlines

Kate Hudson loves herself some love.

The soon-to-be mother of three is nuts about her kids; adores her mom, stepdad and brother; keeps herself in tip-top shape and throws herself into her work with abandon, be it acting or her Fabletics fitness line and healthy-living projects. That's a lot of love.

In fact, it's so much that, even when Hudson has fallen in love with a significant other, it's not always easy to carve out the space needed to make a relationship work.

"Relationships are the most challenging things," she told Self in early 2014. "It's where you do the most work in your life. You come face-to-face with yourself, and if you can deal with realizing we're all flawed, accept it and work with it, you might have a really amazing, lasting relationship." The Almost Famous star, by then a mother of two and at the time engaged to Muse frontman Matthew Bellamy, added, "If I look at my parents, who've been together 30-something years, I'd say no matter what they've been through, they share similar values and really like each other. It sounds easy, but it's not."

Once upon a time, it at least felt easier.

On the verge of becoming the biggest breakout star in Hollywood with the release of Almost Famous, the 21-year-old moved in with Black Crows singer Chris Robinson, days after they met at a party in May 2000. They tied the knot that New Year's Eve, making for a lot of giddy looks and red carpet dates as Hudson became the toast of awards season, and she enthusiastically envisioned spending the rest of her life with him.

"For us, we will never think of not being with each other. I'm done. I am happy. I can't wait to grow old. I can't wait to retire," she told London's Independent newspaper in 2003. The Golden Globe winner had taken a year off from work and was back doing press for The Four Feathers.

During her time away from Hollywood, "I learned how much I love providing for my husband—something I will always cherish, even when I'm working," she said. "I love being able to be a wife, make dinners and invite friends over and be able to make it all nice for him. It's a nice thing for a man to feel that, and for me to feel that I can give that."

Theirs was a passionate relationship, with Hudson also explaining to People that year, "In the beginning we were so volatile. We were so in love and passionate, and then we would just hate each other and throw stuff around, and then we would travel to Paris for a week."

They welcomed son Ryder on Jan. 7, 2004. Hudson said, about becoming parents, "I think it's the best we've ever felt being together."

But there was no magical glue that could hold the couple together. They separated in August 2006 and Robinson filed for divorce that November. Whatever sticking points made staying together impossible, they've since had an almost-drama-free divorce, the actress and the rock star putting Ryder's needs ahead of any lingering bad blood.

"Chris and I divorced for the right reasons—we just didn't work. But we remain extremely close," Hudson told the Daily Mail in 2008, having just played one half of an estranged couple that reconnects during a zany treasure hunt in Fool's Gold. "The reasons are personal [as to why it didn't work], but those things weren't difficult. They can be, but dealing with work schedules is always a challenge. I think that's true for everybody."

And that's one of the reasons why actors so often find love—be it lasting or temporary—on the job.

The short time that lapsed between Hudson's marital separation and the start of her on-and-off relationship with Owen Wilson, her co-star in 2006's Me, You and Dupree, prompted many assumptions that he had something to do with the end of her marriage—speculation that was adamantly denied by Wilson's camp. (In 2009, Hudson said flatly, regarding rumors of infidelity, "That's not what happened.")

During a tumultuous time for both of them, the actors broke up and rekindled several times between when they started dating in September 2006 and their ultimate split in 2009, though people close to them would always categorize their relationship as friendly in between romances.

They first split in 2007, after which Hudson briefly dated Dax Shepard. They called it quits that October when Hudson "got bored," a source told the New York Daily News, but it was a "clean break."

Hudson was back with Wilson by February 2008, but when they broke up for the second time that May 2008, a friend of Wilson's told People, "It was a pretty bad breakup. Owen said it was a tough one. He definitely doesn't want to dwell on it. He wants to put it behind him."

Instead, the following February they were reportedly back on after Hudson briefly dated Lance Armstrong, though their time spent together might have been in a friendlier capacity. Wilson had weathered some intense personal challenges, including a trip to the hospital for what the police report called a suicide attempt in 2007, and he has always been one to keep as tight a lid as possible on his personal life. When the interviewer asked—not about specifics, but just about the increased interest in his personal life in general—during a joint interview with Jennifer Aniston when they did Marley & Me in 2008, he reportedly got up and walked out (he did return to finish the interview).