December 6, 2024 • 38 mins
Imagine finding out you have FORTY siblings? Ben Sanderson lives that reality every day.
Find out why he had no idea he was one of forty brothers and sisters, and how he set out to meet these mysterious siblings.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi. I am Kate Hudson and my name is Oliver Hudson.
We wanted to do something that highlighted our relationship and
what it's like to be siblings. We are a sibling Railvaly.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
No, no, sibling, rail You don't do that with your mouth, Revelry.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
We have a guest, Ben Sanderson in the waiting room
right now. He was a product sperm donation, and you know,
was fortunate enough, I guess, at the age of eighteen
to actually figure out how many siblings he has and
what a trip.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
You know.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
I'm not t i'd want to know. I don't know.
Maybe I would. I'm too curious. I probably would. Oh,
it's strange. Anyway, let's bring me. Let's talk. Hi, Oliver,
how are you brother?
Speaker 3 (01:09):
How good? How are you?
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I'm good. What's happening?
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Nothing? Happy, belated birthday?
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Thank you. Look at all those playbills up there. Let
me guess I know you're an actor.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
No, no, no, no, no, I.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Am I you're an actor.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Yeah, they're all around my room, like the whole perimeter.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Now are these plays that you have been to? I'm
assuming been to or been in?
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Okay, most of them have been to some of them
have been.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
In Yeah, what heights have we reached? Have we been
on Broadway?
Speaker 3 (01:44):
No? No, I'm nineteen, okay, but I do work professionally
mainly during the summer because I am a student.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Yeah, okay, So give me your story, man, Like what happened?
How did this happen? You know, as far as you
being curious, even because I guess it could go both ways.
I mean, in your sort of research of who your
siblings might be, I'm assuming you found a lot that
are very curious about their siblings and their bloodline, and
(02:14):
then others who just don't want to know a thing, right.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Yeah, Yeah, Well, you know, every person is different, and
we all have very different I don't know boundaries. We
all have very different stories. Like my story that everyone
has been resonating with is one of forty or one
(02:38):
of forty one. We all have different stories. We all
come from very different backgrounds, so we all are very
different in terms of like what this means to us.
For me, I embrace all of this with a like
open arms. I'm so public about being donor conceived, I'm
so public about having forty siblings, But a lot of
(03:00):
my siblings are very private about it. Yeah, they're siblings.
I've never met their siblings I have met. Yeah, it
really depends for me. I am just oh my god,
I love talking about it.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Have you become tight with anyone, any of them that
you've met.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I'd say so, like, I'd say yeah, like we talk
often a lot digitally.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
So how does this all happen? You know? Meaning at
eighteen years old is when you are able to look
into all of this legally correct? Yes.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
So I was raised by my single game mom, and
she told me from the womb that I was don't
a conceit. I don't know how she would lie about it,
but because because like you had ad he ran like
I mean, she was. She has been so supportive of
(03:54):
all this since the beginning, and I always knew I
was just right.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
And I was.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Told I don't think it's in law, but I think
it's in regulations with the sperm bank. It might be
done right now, but at least I was told, when
you turn eighteen, you can go looking for your half siblings.
My donor donated anonymously, so I thought I was gonna die,
never knowing his name, not never knowing what he looked like.
(04:21):
But I always wanted to look for my half something.
So it was about a year ago during the summer.
It was during May of twenty twenty three, when I
haven't actually shared this with anyone. I was doing a
production of Into the Woods. The playbill is right there,
Into the Woods, and I was playing one of the princes.
(04:44):
I was playing Cinderella's parents and in the show, he
has a brother. And it was like week three of rehearsal,
and oh god, this sounds so geeky, but I was like,
I need to like connect with the fact that he
has a brother, Like what does that mean. I was like, well,
I don't know. I don't have a brother. And I
was like, wait, oh my god, I do have probably
multiple brothers. And so this all started out of like
(05:07):
me trying to connect with a character, right, oh my god,
like siblings. If you're listening to this, I love you
so much. And that's and it was a dream fund you,
but that's how it started out. I was like, wait,
I want to like connect to having a brother. I
don't know what that's like. Wait I could maybe know
what that's like. So I called my mom and I
(05:29):
was like, hey, Mom, you know how I probably have
half siblings. And we logged onto the donor I don't
know website and there was contact information for one of
my sisters from like ten years ago, and she manually
(05:49):
had like written an email and I was like, I
don't even know if this is gonna work, and so
I emailed the email. I was like, Hi, name's Ben,
I'm based in LA. I'm eighteen. I felt like I
was submitting for audition. I was like, after, here's my Instagram.
(06:11):
I think I'm your brother. I get a DM. The
next day, I was hanging out with my friends Lucy
and Me, and I was like, oh my god, Oh
my god, I just got a DM from my sister.
And they're like, what you're annoy child. I'm like I
thought so too, but no, I'm not anymore. So I
was like, yeah, I have a sister, and I connected
with her and she she DMS me back on Instagram,
(06:32):
and I went to sleep being like cool, I have
a sister. Then I wake up and or it might
have been later that day or something where I get
a bunch of follow requests on Instagram and their mutuals
with my sister. I'm like, oh, my sister told her
friends about me cool like new friends, and I'm pictures
of them and I'm like they kind of looked like
(06:56):
me a little bit. And I was like, wait, what
is the These people are my siblings and my sister
told them about me, and that turned out to be
the case, and one of them, one of a new sister,
sister seventeen, reached out to me and she was like,
so nice to me. We should I should id you
to our group chat of all of us. And she
(07:17):
was like, before I add you, do you know how
many there are of us? So it's like, oh, I
don't know, but like you know, like Max ten right,
and she was like, oh, maybe.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
But there's forty of us.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
I was in a restaurant when I found that out.
I was in a restaurant. I probably had just ordered
like chicken tenders or something, and then I found out
a forty siblings.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
That's just crazy. I mean, that's how do you process that,
especially the younger age where it's like, holy.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Funny, I'm also the youngest of all of them. Oh
really yeah, I'm the youngest of all of them. And
she told me that. She was like I think she
said something like, well, if you don't have any siblings
you make forty one, Like, I'm oh, my god, Oliver.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
I was so excited.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
I wasn't overwhelmed at all. I was so excited. And
then I was added to the group chat and we
talked on there for hours. And one of my siblings
had actually a couple of years ago tracked.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Down our donor.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
What's his name, and you know, pictures of him and
his email, and they told me like, yeah, like some
of us have emailed him, he's emailed back. And so
I didn't email him right away, emailed him a couple
months later he back. And yet once in a while
(08:50):
we'll just email. I haven't I haven't met him yet.
I'd love to.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
How old is he?
Speaker 3 (08:55):
I'm not sure. I try and keep, you know, like
identifying from a about him and my siblings kind of
private because they're a lot more private about all this
than me.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
But I actually don't know. Wow. And then how did
your mom deal with all of it? Obviously she seemed
very She's like a very supportive woman. It feels like
she was.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
She's so supportive of all of this. A lot of
the last like, how does your mom feel about this?
My mom denies this, but I would bet my life
on this. When I called her and told her, Hey, mom,
I have forty siblings. I bet my life. But the
first thing she said was, oh, be I don't have
enough fried chicken for that. She was like, be, I
(09:37):
did not say that. I promisedly.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
She said, I'm going to.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Get a text after she listens to this and be like, be,
I did not say that, but then she and then
she agrees to that. She said that, well, we'll just
add more chairs to thanks she she loves all of this,
she does, Yeah, all of it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Wow. And do you have like ethical feelings about these
sort of situations, you know, where one sperm donor can
sort of produce forty plus children because this is not
it's almost because you're hearing the story more and more
(10:20):
and more, you know what I mean, where everyone's discovering
that they have like nine thousand siblings because of one
sperm donor, and I guess it does raise ethical questions.
I mean, how do you feel about that? You know,
I know it's fun and exciting, but yeah, it's totally
fun exciting.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Two things can be true at the same time. It's
amazing that I am the youngest sibling of forty people.
And obviously I'm not an expert. I'm just a person
with an opinion. But I think that donor anonymity, which
is like what my donor did, like he donated anonymously
and we and it was the consensus that none of
(11:01):
us would ever know who he was. I think that's
going to become antiquated in the next couple of years,
just because of twenty three and me in ancestry. You
can we really can't keep it a secret anymore. It's
a huge Like back in the day, the sperm banks
and egg banks, I guess what they called the at
(11:23):
least the sperm banks would tell parents who were using sperm,
don't tell your kids their donor conceived. That was something they.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Advised, really, yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Yeah, because they didn't they didn't really know how it
was gonna go. There's a TikToker named Laura High who
I've actually talked to. She is an expert on all
of it. She's donor conceived as well. She's in the
entertainment business as well. Everyone listening to go check her
out on TikTok. But a lot of donor can see
people don't know their donor conceived and that's really dangerous.
(11:56):
I think that's the crux of the issues. That's really dangerous.
And that's why I'm so open about being don't conceived
to like kind of break the taboo, because it's still
a really taboo thing. If you don't know, you're don't conceived,
half of the information you put on hospital forms or
doctor's office is and that's really that's really dangerous.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
And the other the other thing too is you know,
you know, when you are seeing a doctor or when
you are you're a young dude, but you know, when
you are getting into your older years, you do want
to know what you're potentially predisposed to, you know. So
there's a medical component to all of this as well,
where it's like, oh, you have you know that side
(12:40):
of the family at heart disease. You know, you're more
prone to this, more prone to that. You know.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Another thing is my oldest sister, sister one, we grew
up in LA at the same time. Wow, and we
didn't we were Wow, that is too close. Like oh,
another thing people talk about obviously the elephant room is
like forty people Like what if you didn't.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Know was one of them. There's so I don't know
last year. Two years ago, we had on our show
a similar situation where there was a donor and there
was a sibling and the and the other sibling was
there too, so it was kind of like a two
for deal. She told us the story, and I'm not
(13:27):
going to get into the whole thing because it's kind
of long winded, but basically, she was single and dating
around and slept with her half brother unknowingly. Yeah, yeah,
thank god it wasn't a love connection, because you know,
then there could be kids involved in ship. But that's
(13:51):
that's gnarly, and you know, to your point, especially especially
when you're you know, a donor. A sperm bank is
a brick and mortar building that is located in a
city where a lot of people are probably going to
be using that donor correct or is it all over
the country, We're all.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Over the country, but California crya Bank, California is where
I'm from, is one of the biggest sperm banks ever.
Anyone listening can tell by my voice that nothing would
have happened between me and my sister anyway. I kind
of like that, that's so close. That's crazy. Oh and
(14:31):
she oh, my cousin, it's her birthday in the name
she she's on my mom's side, my cousin. She went
to high school with my oldest sister and they were
a year apart. They were year apart, and they were friends.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
And they knew. It's just fucking crazy, dude.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Really close. Wow. It's also a personal thing. I really
think a lot of parents ask me, when should I
tell my child their donor can see. I think just
being as open about as possible is the most ethical
thing to do and will cause the least.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Amount of problem.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
I usually say, if they're old enough for the sex talk,
they're old enough for the donor talk. If you earlier,
they're not.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yes, I couldn't agree more. I mean, what good does
it do to keep that kind of a secret. I
don't even understand, you know. I mean, why would one
be advised to not say anything? That's just lying at
the end of the day.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Yeah, when I talk about this, I want to make
one thing clear. I really sympathize with parents that do
keep it a secret from their kid, because this is
a very contemporary thing, having kids by use of donor conception.
I think it comes from a fear that your child's
going to grow up and love the biological more or
(15:59):
you know, say I have trouble talking about this because
I didn't go away. I'm in a very privileged position.
But say there's a man who wants to conceive but
he's infertile. That's like a very very vulnerable person thing.
You might want to keep that a secret from anyone,
(16:21):
even in your.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Try Do you want kids?
Speaker 3 (16:24):
I've thought about.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
This, Oliver.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
I don't have children because say I have forty siblings,
say we all have two kids, and say they have
two kids, that's like what one hundred and sixty grandkids.
I don't know if I can do. That would be devastating.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
I mean, you're so young. There's no need to make
any fucking decisions, right. But I remember when I was
a young man, you know, I was you know, I
wanted kids. It was a part of me that was like,
I want children, you know. And interestingly enough, I came
from a divorce family, and it wasn't the best situation.
It wasn't awful, but it wasn't the best. So I
(17:11):
could have easily gone the other way and said, well,
I don't want to put my kids through that, you
know what I mean. But I I had this just
desire to have children. You know that can obviously change
for you.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Yeah, I'm not seeing I'm not I'm thinking.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
About getting Broadway, right, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Think about kids. I don't. I don't know. It's like
I don't know if I ever want to get married,
and then if I don't get I don't know, but
I think I might have done.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Basically, the question isn't the pressure of like, oh, are
you going to have kids or not? It's you know,
given your circumstance, and you know how you were conceived
and what you have witnessed through these you know, finding
of these siblings. Is this something that you would want,
you know, for yourself to be a deaf dad. I
(18:10):
would love to be a dad, you would, Yeah, that
would be awesome. It's just how would that happen? I
don't know. There's we don't need to think about that.
And you've got many many years. Where are you? Where
are you in school? I go to Indiana University? Are
you in the theater program there?
Speaker 3 (18:29):
I'm afa musical theater?
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Okay? And what's the dream?
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Anything? Can I just stage screen anything?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Love you?
Speaker 3 (18:40):
I literally if I am in the entertainment business, in anything,
if I'm entertaining people. Oh my god, that's what makes
me sleep at night.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
I love good, good, good good.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
No.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
I know, well you seem to love it. You know.
I got a D plus in my acting class at Boulder, Colorado.
But you known story. Actually I never wanted to be
an actor. I wanted to make movies, direct write producers,
which I do as well. But you know, I went
to Boulder and I had this teacher and I took
(19:15):
it to get an A basically, you know what I mean.
It's acting class and my whole family they were actors
and blah blah blah. But I was not really wanting
to be an actor. I got a D plus because
I was with my best friend and I fucked around
so much in the class, and years later I had
become an actor. I was like twenty four years old.
I got my first sort of starring role in a
(19:37):
television show, like some w WB show, and I was
doing press. I did like Vanity Fair and I did
People Magazine. I did all this press for it, and
I got out the clippings and I sent it to
him with a note saying thanks for the deep plus.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Oh my god, what did he say? What did he
say he was great?
Speaker 1 (19:59):
I mean he he literally was sent to you know,
this is all this is a long time ago, but
it was he was congratulations. You know, I was being cheeky,
I was being funny. Yeah, I wasn't trying to be
too much of a dick, but it was still sort
of like a bar a jab because he gave me
a deep lesson acting.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Yeah, it's it's also tricky wanting to go into this
business as a publicly donor conceived person, because I always
ask people name one celebrity that's donor most people, and yeah,
you know there are a couple.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
That are some we might not even know.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Yeah. Yeah, it's like it's still super taboos. So I
don't know for it's it's also interesting the more I
guess in the public I become, the the more important
it is to for at least for me to keep
my privacy and keep my donors privacy. So yeah, it's
(21:02):
very interesting about I just want to go into this
being super open about the fact that I was.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Don't. Of course we'll think about too. You know, as
you get older, how do you know how the oldest
is by any chance?
Speaker 3 (21:13):
Yes, the sister one is nine, years older than Wow.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
So it's like this small margin, this holy shit.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Like a freaking wow of like forty kids in nine years.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Wow. Isn't it nutty though, that that out of the
forty you're going to get all kinds of different walks
of life, you know. And you know, similarly, as I
told you before, I had interviewed a woman who was
in your similar situation, but she was older, and so
these her siblings had already sort of progressed into adulthood.
(21:53):
And of course she's not going to reveal who they are,
but she goes, oh, we we have billionaires. We have
people who she goes, me that you would probably know
in the entertainment industry. You know, all walks of life.
And that's so trippy to think that, you know, in
(22:14):
twenty years or so twenty five years, as everyone matures
and gets older and finds their path, you're just gonna
have all kinds of different people.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
I know.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
It's cool.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
It's fun finding the similarities between all of us though,
because it's like, well, what's.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Genetic and what you have you experienced that?
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Yeah, whenever I meet a new sibling digitally or in person,
it's it's like making a new friend, but without the
weird do they like me? Are we clicking part? It's
like the third stage? All right, what do we all
have in common? Not one of us knows how to
(22:57):
play a musical instrument? Really, And then people are like, Ben,
you're a singer. That's an instrument. I'm like, bitches, no,
that's not what I'm like, What else do we have
in common? Like we all love animals, that's like sang
we all have a very similar shoot, I think what
(23:18):
about physical?
Speaker 1 (23:18):
What about physical? Like? Have you did you guys look alike?
It's weird too, because you know, I've got three kids
and it's like, oh my god, Like, you know, you
look like your mother and this one might look more
like me. And you can see that. So do you
know if you look like your dad?
Speaker 3 (23:36):
I definitely really look like me?
Speaker 1 (23:38):
You do?
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Yeah, I definitely look like my mom. I think. I
I can't. I've seen pictures of him when he was
my age, and I can connect more to that. Look
at pictures of him now, I'm like, oh god, it's
like a stranger. What's interesting. I forgot to say this before.
(23:59):
I looked for myself things when I was doing my
character work and I was like, hey, Mom, I need
to find out, you know, what it's like to have brother.
I realized that like my mom when she bought me,
bought like an add on for like twenty dollars of
an audio of my father talking like being interviewed like
(24:20):
this right. It was it was like a side of fries.
And she was like, oh yeah, it's like a twenty
minute audio of him talking about his favorite color, you know,
his philanthropy and just everything. And I listened to that
before I found anything. I was just like, wait, do
you still have that? Just out of curiosity. And I
listened to that about.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
A year ago when I was eighteen.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Listening to that, Oliver was christ Yeah, maybe we look
a little similar, but we have a really similar personetto
And it was within the first two minutes of that audio,
I was like, oh my god. First of all, we
sound the same. We have the same speaking voice and
(25:05):
I mean pretty similar, and we have the same laugh.
And that was crazy because I had never heard him
talk the first eighteen years of my life or or laugh.
So the fact that that's genetic, he is crazy. And
just the way he not even how how he sounds
(25:27):
me he talks about the way he talks and you know,
the way his humor. It was so me and that
was so crazy. I feel like that's circling back. That's
what a lot of parents of don't can see. People
like fear like, well, what if they just turned out
just like they're biological father. It's like, okay, so what
(25:50):
Like I know who picked me up from school, I
know who the Christmas presents, I know who was there
when I said my first word, when I you know,
walked the first time. So yeah, do I have similar
cadences to my father's.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Sure? But I love my mom. She's my favorite person ever,
and she was She was single when she bought you.
I guess, like it's so strange to say, yeah, saying that.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
I was like, what's funny? Yeah, and she's still single.
So it's literally just been me and her this whole time.
So my family went from one person to forty one.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
So she's never been in a relationship since you guys
have since you've been around on the earth, it's always
been you and her.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Married Wow, yeah, so it's slowly just been me and her.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
So what was that like? You know, sort of when
you're young, when you're a baby. When you're an infant,
you know no better, and you only start to sort
of understand how other people might live as you get
older and you're witnessing it. Did you have that moment
of like, wait a minute, something's different here.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
I remember I know exactly where I was in my
neighborhood in La. I was being driven home from preschool.
I know exactly where I was when I was like, hey, mom,
how come all my other classmates have some big man
picking him up and I don't have one? And I
(27:26):
remember what she said. It just stuck with me. She
was like, well, be every family looks different some people
some some kids have two dads, some kids have one mom,
Some kids have a mom and a dad. Some some
kids have two sets of parents. Some kids are raised
by their grandma. Just every family looks different. Curtain. I
(27:46):
was like okay, And that stuck with me, like for years,
and I just remember, like, you know, it's La. I'd
see gay parents and then a kid walking down the
street and I wouldn't think anything happened. It was completely
normal to me. I remember when it was like fourth
grade and kids would be like like I would be like,
(28:09):
I don't have a dad. And kids would be like, uh,
that's not possible. Everyone has a dad. And I remember
thinking I was so smart because I was like, these idiots,
I don't have it. I'm smarter than them. You don't
have to have a dad. And then it was like
middle school was like wait, I think everyone has a dad.
(28:33):
I remember like sex classes in sixth grade and I
was like, wait, I know there's something up with a
sperm bank. I think is what it's called. I was
learning about sex. I was like, I think it was
like once a year. I checked with my mom, was like, wait,
I'm not adopted, right. I felt like a normal kid always.
(28:54):
I think that was an adult hearing how much my
story resonates with people. What makes me like, go, wait,
am I different? Not in a bad way, but like this,
this dynamic is special.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
I guess no, Yeah, well no, it's true. I mean
you you know, with a platform like you have and
with it sort of blowing up the way that it did,
you are sort of giving people comfort with your story.
You know what I'm saying. You You know, I've been
(29:31):
through gnarly anxiety through my life, and you know I'm
on lexapro and yeah, it's just that you just battle
with it and it's not debilitating necessarily, and you know
cerebrally that there are other people dealing with the same shit,
if not worse, that you are dealing with, similar to
maybe what you know the people that you are speaking to.
(29:54):
But when you connect with someone who is actually feeling
the anxiety, who is going through the same thing that
you're going through, and you're actually connecting with that person
and talking to them and not hearing their story, there
you do you do feel, you know, some weight that
can be lifted off. You know you're not alone. Even
(30:17):
though you know you're not alone, it has to be tangible,
and I think that's what your story has done for
a lot of people, you know.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Yeah, I also think I didn't think about this when
I was posting it. I was just, first of all,
all of this happened. I was doing a summerstock contract
this summer. I was in a state I've never lived
in in my life, and I literally just posted the
video and then went to rehearsal and I was like,
it's my phone like heating up. I think that I
(30:46):
didn't think about when I posted it. A lot of
people resonate with what I had to say one because
it's crazy, but two, a lot of people comment, I
love how happy you are about this? I love they
love how excited I am about all this, how happy
I am. And it's just I think it's a breath
of fresh air because a lot of people say, like
all news is bad news, like everyone just wants gossip,
(31:07):
and you know tragedies sell better. But to me, this
is a happy story beginning. Mill and I have a
great mom. I had a great first eighteen years of
my life. And when I found these forty people and
they're amazing too, and it's just and I found him
when I literally thought I never would ever And it's
(31:29):
just a happy story anything. People resonate with that. And
so I think if you're if you're someone who is
like a miner and you know you're don't conceived and
you can't go reaching out for people yet, to people yet,
if they see my video, they'd be like, oh, like this,
there might be a happy ending just like this.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
Might not have forty some right, but it could be great.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
A lesson to is bigger life lesson you just didn't.
You have to embrace where you are, Embrace who you are,
Embrace your story. Everyone's story is different, and everyone's story
is forever shifting and changing, you know. I mean you
think about sort of your life up until the point
that you realize, holy fuck, I've got forty one siblings,
(32:16):
you know, So we can't change what exists, what is
actually happening. So why not embrace it, you know, good
and bad. That's the lesson.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
I have a question. Yeah, a lot of people ask me,
and it doesn't make any sense to me, but they're like,
do you view your siblings as you know, like the
same as siblings you grew up with? And I'm like,
well no, because I didn't grow up with them. They're
like not what I mean? Like, like, do you view
them the way other.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
People view their siblings?
Speaker 3 (32:59):
And I don't know, Like I don't know what that's like. So, like,
you growing up with Kate, how do you how do
you view her now as an adult? Now that you
were both adults? I mean you adults for all time,
but you're both adults. How has growing up with her
changed your relationship? Because for me, literally like you and Kate,
(33:24):
except we didn't grow up with you.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
I guess the difference is is that we were born
two and a half years apart and spent our entire
childhood growing up together. So you're going to sort of
go through all of the ups and downs of what
it is to be a sibling, and again, circumstances are
going to dictate that your relationship as well. You know,
(33:47):
we were in my parents were in a divorce, and
I was sort of fending for myself in a way,
meaning like with my own emotions. I didn't have the
capacity to be a good big brother to her when
she just needed love from me. But I was I
(34:08):
was inequipped. I couldn't do it, you know, because I
was sort of just trying to protect myself in that moment.
And then I didn't like her. And she was always
fabulous and performing and look at me shit and da
da da dah, which of course is what made her
a star, you know, and I was like Jesus Kate,
(34:28):
just like relax. But we have now become sort of
best of friends. You know, it's been years since we
have been but you know, she became famous, she married Chris,
they were off doing their thing. We were we had
lived sort of separate lives, you know, we were still connected,
but it wasn't that tight tight, tight sibling bond, you know.
(34:53):
And then years ago it's just sort of happened where
we matured into our relation relationship, you know what I mean,
and then we became best friends. But the other the
beauty of it too is you can go weeks without
talking and it's okay, you know, we it's that connected
that I love you good, You're good, We're good, all right, cool,
(35:16):
you know, and then two weeks later we have a
really beautiful conversation. You know, there's that comfortability. So to
answer your question, I mean, it would be fun for
you to find someone that you really connect with and
bring that person into your life, you know what I mean,
and have a true sibling relationship if you so desire it,
(35:39):
of course, because it's there, that blood is there, and
the connection is there, and then it's just about sort
of nurturing it and wanting to have a human contact
connection with one or two of You're forty one. I
have a similar story. I mean, I gotta I've told
the story on my podcast. But I get a note
(36:01):
under my door I come home. It's like, it says
his name, please call me. I have some information about
your father. I'm like, what the fuck? Okay, long, long
story short, this dude turns out to be my half
brother because my dad, you know, he was given up
(36:22):
for adoption at a very young age. And he contacted
me and I, you know, five, ten, six years ago,
I was like, oh shit, I have a half brother
that I didn't know about. He looks like it's like
six years ago this happened. He looks like me. He
looks like my dad, you know. And then I met
(36:43):
his son, you know, who's like my nephew or yeah,
and so it's just it's crazy and it's cool as shit,
you know.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
So I have Yeah, so that story with your half brother.
It's me times and that's my situation. If you're trying
and put yourself in.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
My it's crazy. It's crazy. But yeah, I mean it
would be fun to like connect with someone or you're
in Indiana. Now where do you live live?
Speaker 3 (37:11):
I live live in LA.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
And I'm sure you have siblings who are in La. No,
not really really, you know, I mean, do you connect
with a few more than others or have like that
bond you know? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Oh my god, I love all of them like we're family.
Like I love all of them. They're I sister. Seventeen.
We get on FaceTime, we'll talk about any well. I
literally will just call her up. She'll answer to call me.
I'll answer, oh my god. Like we just we match
each other.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's so fun, dude. I mean you
have forty one siblings. Like someone, it's like all you
can eat whatever. If you're going through something, you're a psychologist,
let me call you or you can. Yeah. Congratulations, this
is very cool. You are now part of a massive,
(38:10):
massive family I know. And uh, good luck, dude.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
Have you ever see me on the sidewalk in l A.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
I will you too, and good luck, good luck with
your career and and uh, you know, I hope to
see you on the stage on the screen someday, someday. No, no,
you got to go to school, buddy, You gotta go. Brother,
Hi. I am Kate Hudson and my name is Oliver Hudson.
We wanted to do something that highlighted our relationship and
what it's like to be siblings. We are a sibling Railvaly.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
No, no, sibling, rail You don't do that with your mouth, Revelry.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
We have a guest, Ben Sanderson in the waiting room
right now. He was a product sperm donation, and you know,
was fortunate enough, I guess, at the age of eighteen
to actually figure out how many siblings he has and
what a trip.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
You know.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
I'm not t i'd want to know. I don't know.
Maybe I would. I'm too curious. I probably would. Oh,
it's strange. Anyway, let's bring me. Let's talk. Hi, Oliver,
how are you brother?
Speaker 3 (01:09):
How good? How are you?
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I'm good. What's happening?
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Nothing? Happy, belated birthday?
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Thank you. Look at all those playbills up there. Let
me guess I know you're an actor.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
No, no, no, no, no, I.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Am I you're an actor.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Yeah, they're all around my room, like the whole perimeter.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Now are these plays that you have been to? I'm
assuming been to or been in?
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Okay, most of them have been to some of them
have been.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
In Yeah, what heights have we reached? Have we been
on Broadway?
Speaker 3 (01:44):
No? No, I'm nineteen, okay, but I do work professionally
mainly during the summer because I am a student.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Yeah, okay, So give me your story, man, Like what happened?
How did this happen? You know, as far as you
being curious, even because I guess it could go both ways.
I mean, in your sort of research of who your
siblings might be, I'm assuming you found a lot that
are very curious about their siblings and their bloodline, and
(02:14):
then others who just don't want to know a thing, right.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Yeah, Yeah, Well, you know, every person is different, and
we all have very different I don't know boundaries. We
all have very different stories. Like my story that everyone
has been resonating with is one of forty or one
(02:38):
of forty one. We all have different stories. We all
come from very different backgrounds, so we all are very
different in terms of like what this means to us.
For me, I embrace all of this with a like
open arms. I'm so public about being donor conceived, I'm
so public about having forty siblings, But a lot of
(03:00):
my siblings are very private about it. Yeah, they're siblings.
I've never met their siblings I have met. Yeah, it
really depends for me. I am just oh my god,
I love talking about it.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Have you become tight with anyone, any of them that
you've met.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I'd say so, like, I'd say yeah, like we talk
often a lot digitally.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
So how does this all happen? You know? Meaning at
eighteen years old is when you are able to look
into all of this legally correct? Yes.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
So I was raised by my single game mom, and
she told me from the womb that I was don't
a conceit. I don't know how she would lie about it,
but because because like you had ad he ran like
I mean, she was. She has been so supportive of
(03:54):
all this since the beginning, and I always knew I
was just right.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
And I was.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Told I don't think it's in law, but I think
it's in regulations with the sperm bank. It might be
done right now, but at least I was told, when
you turn eighteen, you can go looking for your half siblings.
My donor donated anonymously, so I thought I was gonna die,
never knowing his name, not never knowing what he looked like.
(04:21):
But I always wanted to look for my half something.
So it was about a year ago during the summer.
It was during May of twenty twenty three, when I
haven't actually shared this with anyone. I was doing a
production of Into the Woods. The playbill is right there,
Into the Woods, and I was playing one of the princes.
(04:44):
I was playing Cinderella's parents and in the show, he
has a brother. And it was like week three of rehearsal,
and oh god, this sounds so geeky, but I was like,
I need to like connect with the fact that he
has a brother, Like what does that mean. I was like, well,
I don't know. I don't have a brother. And I
was like, wait, oh my god, I do have probably
multiple brothers. And so this all started out of like
(05:07):
me trying to connect with a character, right, oh my god,
like siblings. If you're listening to this, I love you
so much. And that's and it was a dream fund you,
but that's how it started out. I was like, wait,
I want to like connect to having a brother. I
don't know what that's like. Wait I could maybe know
what that's like. So I called my mom and I
(05:29):
was like, hey, Mom, you know how I probably have
half siblings. And we logged onto the donor I don't
know website and there was contact information for one of
my sisters from like ten years ago, and she manually
(05:49):
had like written an email and I was like, I
don't even know if this is gonna work, and so
I emailed the email. I was like, Hi, name's Ben,
I'm based in LA. I'm eighteen. I felt like I
was submitting for audition. I was like, after, here's my Instagram.
(06:11):
I think I'm your brother. I get a DM. The
next day, I was hanging out with my friends Lucy
and Me, and I was like, oh my god, Oh
my god, I just got a DM from my sister.
And they're like, what you're annoy child. I'm like I
thought so too, but no, I'm not anymore. So I
was like, yeah, I have a sister, and I connected
with her and she she DMS me back on Instagram,
(06:32):
and I went to sleep being like cool, I have
a sister. Then I wake up and or it might
have been later that day or something where I get
a bunch of follow requests on Instagram and their mutuals
with my sister. I'm like, oh, my sister told her
friends about me cool like new friends, and I'm pictures
of them and I'm like they kind of looked like
(06:56):
me a little bit. And I was like, wait, what
is the These people are my siblings and my sister
told them about me, and that turned out to be
the case, and one of them, one of a new sister,
sister seventeen, reached out to me and she was like,
so nice to me. We should I should id you
to our group chat of all of us. And she
(07:17):
was like, before I add you, do you know how
many there are of us? So it's like, oh, I
don't know, but like you know, like Max ten right,
and she was like, oh, maybe.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
But there's forty of us.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
I was in a restaurant when I found that out.
I was in a restaurant. I probably had just ordered
like chicken tenders or something, and then I found out
a forty siblings.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
That's just crazy. I mean, that's how do you process that,
especially the younger age where it's like, holy.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Funny, I'm also the youngest of all of them. Oh
really yeah, I'm the youngest of all of them. And
she told me that. She was like I think she
said something like, well, if you don't have any siblings
you make forty one, Like, I'm oh, my god, Oliver.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
I was so excited.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
I wasn't overwhelmed at all. I was so excited. And
then I was added to the group chat and we
talked on there for hours. And one of my siblings
had actually a couple of years ago tracked.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Down our donor.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
What's his name, and you know, pictures of him and
his email, and they told me like, yeah, like some
of us have emailed him, he's emailed back. And so
I didn't email him right away, emailed him a couple
months later he back. And yet once in a while
(08:50):
we'll just email. I haven't I haven't met him yet.
I'd love to.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
How old is he?
Speaker 3 (08:55):
I'm not sure. I try and keep, you know, like
identifying from a about him and my siblings kind of
private because they're a lot more private about all this
than me.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
But I actually don't know. Wow. And then how did
your mom deal with all of it? Obviously she seemed
very She's like a very supportive woman. It feels like
she was.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
She's so supportive of all of this. A lot of
the last like, how does your mom feel about this?
My mom denies this, but I would bet my life
on this. When I called her and told her, Hey, mom,
I have forty siblings. I bet my life. But the
first thing she said was, oh, be I don't have
enough fried chicken for that. She was like, be, I
(09:37):
did not say that. I promisedly.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
She said, I'm going to.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Get a text after she listens to this and be like, be,
I did not say that, but then she and then
she agrees to that. She said that, well, we'll just
add more chairs to thanks she she loves all of this,
she does, Yeah, all of it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Wow. And do you have like ethical feelings about these
sort of situations, you know, where one sperm donor can
sort of produce forty plus children because this is not
it's almost because you're hearing the story more and more
(10:20):
and more, you know what I mean, where everyone's discovering
that they have like nine thousand siblings because of one
sperm donor, and I guess it does raise ethical questions.
I mean, how do you feel about that? You know,
I know it's fun and exciting, but yeah, it's totally
fun exciting.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Two things can be true at the same time. It's
amazing that I am the youngest sibling of forty people.
And obviously I'm not an expert. I'm just a person
with an opinion. But I think that donor anonymity, which
is like what my donor did, like he donated anonymously
and we and it was the consensus that none of
(11:01):
us would ever know who he was. I think that's
going to become antiquated in the next couple of years,
just because of twenty three and me in ancestry. You
can we really can't keep it a secret anymore. It's
a huge Like back in the day, the sperm banks
and egg banks, I guess what they called the at
(11:23):
least the sperm banks would tell parents who were using sperm,
don't tell your kids their donor conceived. That was something they.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Advised, really, yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Yeah, because they didn't they didn't really know how it
was gonna go. There's a TikToker named Laura High who
I've actually talked to. She is an expert on all
of it. She's donor conceived as well. She's in the
entertainment business as well. Everyone listening to go check her
out on TikTok. But a lot of donor can see
people don't know their donor conceived and that's really dangerous.
(11:56):
I think that's the crux of the issues. That's really dangerous.
And that's why I'm so open about being don't conceived
to like kind of break the taboo, because it's still
a really taboo thing. If you don't know, you're don't conceived,
half of the information you put on hospital forms or
doctor's office is and that's really that's really dangerous.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
And the other the other thing too is you know,
you know, when you are seeing a doctor or when
you are you're a young dude, but you know, when
you are getting into your older years, you do want
to know what you're potentially predisposed to, you know. So
there's a medical component to all of this as well,
where it's like, oh, you have you know that side
(12:40):
of the family at heart disease. You know, you're more
prone to this, more prone to that. You know.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Another thing is my oldest sister, sister one, we grew
up in LA at the same time. Wow, and we
didn't we were Wow, that is too close. Like oh,
another thing people talk about obviously the elephant room is
like forty people Like what if you didn't.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Know was one of them. There's so I don't know
last year. Two years ago, we had on our show
a similar situation where there was a donor and there
was a sibling and the and the other sibling was
there too, so it was kind of like a two
for deal. She told us the story, and I'm not
(13:27):
going to get into the whole thing because it's kind
of long winded, but basically, she was single and dating
around and slept with her half brother unknowingly. Yeah, yeah,
thank god it wasn't a love connection, because you know,
then there could be kids involved in ship. But that's
(13:51):
that's gnarly, and you know, to your point, especially especially
when you're you know, a donor. A sperm bank is
a brick and mortar building that is located in a
city where a lot of people are probably going to
be using that donor correct or is it all over
the country, We're all.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Over the country, but California crya Bank, California is where
I'm from, is one of the biggest sperm banks ever.
Anyone listening can tell by my voice that nothing would
have happened between me and my sister anyway. I kind
of like that, that's so close. That's crazy. Oh and
(14:31):
she oh, my cousin, it's her birthday in the name
she she's on my mom's side, my cousin. She went
to high school with my oldest sister and they were
a year apart. They were year apart, and they were friends.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
And they knew. It's just fucking crazy, dude.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Really close. Wow. It's also a personal thing. I really
think a lot of parents ask me, when should I
tell my child their donor can see. I think just
being as open about as possible is the most ethical
thing to do and will cause the least.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Amount of problem.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
I usually say, if they're old enough for the sex talk,
they're old enough for the donor talk. If you earlier,
they're not.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yes, I couldn't agree more. I mean, what good does
it do to keep that kind of a secret. I
don't even understand, you know. I mean, why would one
be advised to not say anything? That's just lying at
the end of the day.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Yeah, when I talk about this, I want to make
one thing clear. I really sympathize with parents that do
keep it a secret from their kid, because this is
a very contemporary thing, having kids by use of donor conception.
I think it comes from a fear that your child's
going to grow up and love the biological more or
(15:59):
you know, say I have trouble talking about this because
I didn't go away. I'm in a very privileged position.
But say there's a man who wants to conceive but
he's infertile. That's like a very very vulnerable person thing.
You might want to keep that a secret from anyone,
(16:21):
even in your.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Try Do you want kids?
Speaker 3 (16:24):
I've thought about.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
This, Oliver.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
I don't have children because say I have forty siblings,
say we all have two kids, and say they have
two kids, that's like what one hundred and sixty grandkids.
I don't know if I can do. That would be devastating.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
I mean, you're so young. There's no need to make
any fucking decisions, right. But I remember when I was
a young man, you know, I was you know, I
wanted kids. It was a part of me that was like,
I want children, you know. And interestingly enough, I came
from a divorce family, and it wasn't the best situation.
It wasn't awful, but it wasn't the best. So I
(17:11):
could have easily gone the other way and said, well,
I don't want to put my kids through that, you
know what I mean. But I I had this just
desire to have children. You know that can obviously change
for you.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Yeah, I'm not seeing I'm not I'm thinking.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
About getting Broadway, right, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Think about kids. I don't. I don't know. It's like
I don't know if I ever want to get married,
and then if I don't get I don't know, but
I think I might have done.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Basically, the question isn't the pressure of like, oh, are
you going to have kids or not? It's you know,
given your circumstance, and you know how you were conceived
and what you have witnessed through these you know, finding
of these siblings. Is this something that you would want,
you know, for yourself to be a deaf dad. I
(18:10):
would love to be a dad, you would, Yeah, that
would be awesome. It's just how would that happen? I
don't know. There's we don't need to think about that.
And you've got many many years. Where are you? Where
are you in school? I go to Indiana University? Are
you in the theater program there?
Speaker 3 (18:29):
I'm afa musical theater?
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Okay? And what's the dream?
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Anything? Can I just stage screen anything?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Love you?
Speaker 3 (18:40):
I literally if I am in the entertainment business, in anything,
if I'm entertaining people. Oh my god, that's what makes
me sleep at night.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
I love good, good, good good.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
No.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
I know, well you seem to love it. You know.
I got a D plus in my acting class at Boulder, Colorado.
But you known story. Actually I never wanted to be
an actor. I wanted to make movies, direct write producers,
which I do as well. But you know, I went
to Boulder and I had this teacher and I took
(19:15):
it to get an A basically, you know what I mean.
It's acting class and my whole family they were actors
and blah blah blah. But I was not really wanting
to be an actor. I got a D plus because
I was with my best friend and I fucked around
so much in the class, and years later I had
become an actor. I was like twenty four years old.
I got my first sort of starring role in a
(19:37):
television show, like some w WB show, and I was
doing press. I did like Vanity Fair and I did
People Magazine. I did all this press for it, and
I got out the clippings and I sent it to
him with a note saying thanks for the deep plus.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Oh my god, what did he say? What did he
say he was great?
Speaker 1 (19:59):
I mean he he literally was sent to you know,
this is all this is a long time ago, but
it was he was congratulations. You know, I was being cheeky,
I was being funny. Yeah, I wasn't trying to be
too much of a dick, but it was still sort
of like a bar a jab because he gave me
a deep lesson acting.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Yeah, it's it's also tricky wanting to go into this
business as a publicly donor conceived person, because I always
ask people name one celebrity that's donor most people, and yeah,
you know there are a couple.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
That are some we might not even know.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Yeah. Yeah, it's like it's still super taboos. So I
don't know for it's it's also interesting the more I
guess in the public I become, the the more important
it is to for at least for me to keep
my privacy and keep my donors privacy. So yeah, it's
(21:02):
very interesting about I just want to go into this
being super open about the fact that I was.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Don't. Of course we'll think about too. You know, as
you get older, how do you know how the oldest
is by any chance?
Speaker 3 (21:13):
Yes, the sister one is nine, years older than Wow.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
So it's like this small margin, this holy shit.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Like a freaking wow of like forty kids in nine years.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Wow. Isn't it nutty though, that that out of the
forty you're going to get all kinds of different walks
of life, you know. And you know, similarly, as I
told you before, I had interviewed a woman who was
in your similar situation, but she was older, and so
these her siblings had already sort of progressed into adulthood.
(21:53):
And of course she's not going to reveal who they are,
but she goes, oh, we we have billionaires. We have
people who she goes, me that you would probably know
in the entertainment industry. You know, all walks of life.
And that's so trippy to think that, you know, in
(22:14):
twenty years or so twenty five years, as everyone matures
and gets older and finds their path, you're just gonna
have all kinds of different people.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
I know.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
It's cool.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
It's fun finding the similarities between all of us though,
because it's like, well, what's.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Genetic and what you have you experienced that?
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Yeah, whenever I meet a new sibling digitally or in person,
it's it's like making a new friend, but without the
weird do they like me? Are we clicking part? It's
like the third stage? All right, what do we all
have in common? Not one of us knows how to
(22:57):
play a musical instrument? Really, And then people are like, Ben,
you're a singer. That's an instrument. I'm like, bitches, no,
that's not what I'm like, What else do we have
in common? Like we all love animals, that's like sang
we all have a very similar shoot, I think what
(23:18):
about physical?
Speaker 1 (23:18):
What about physical? Like? Have you did you guys look alike?
It's weird too, because you know, I've got three kids
and it's like, oh my god, Like, you know, you
look like your mother and this one might look more
like me. And you can see that. So do you
know if you look like your dad?
Speaker 3 (23:36):
I definitely really look like me?
Speaker 1 (23:38):
You do?
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Yeah, I definitely look like my mom. I think. I
I can't. I've seen pictures of him when he was
my age, and I can connect more to that. Look
at pictures of him now, I'm like, oh god, it's
like a stranger. What's interesting. I forgot to say this before.
(23:59):
I looked for myself things when I was doing my
character work and I was like, hey, Mom, I need
to find out, you know, what it's like to have brother.
I realized that like my mom when she bought me,
bought like an add on for like twenty dollars of
an audio of my father talking like being interviewed like
(24:20):
this right. It was it was like a side of fries.
And she was like, oh yeah, it's like a twenty
minute audio of him talking about his favorite color, you know,
his philanthropy and just everything. And I listened to that
before I found anything. I was just like, wait, do
you still have that? Just out of curiosity. And I
listened to that about.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
A year ago when I was eighteen.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Listening to that, Oliver was christ Yeah, maybe we look
a little similar, but we have a really similar personetto
And it was within the first two minutes of that audio,
I was like, oh my god. First of all, we
sound the same. We have the same speaking voice and
(25:05):
I mean pretty similar, and we have the same laugh.
And that was crazy because I had never heard him
talk the first eighteen years of my life or or laugh.
So the fact that that's genetic, he is crazy. And
just the way he not even how how he sounds
(25:27):
me he talks about the way he talks and you know,
the way his humor. It was so me and that
was so crazy. I feel like that's circling back. That's
what a lot of parents of don't can see. People
like fear like, well, what if they just turned out
just like they're biological father. It's like, okay, so what
(25:50):
Like I know who picked me up from school, I
know who the Christmas presents, I know who was there
when I said my first word, when I you know,
walked the first time. So yeah, do I have similar
cadences to my father's.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Sure? But I love my mom. She's my favorite person ever,
and she was She was single when she bought you.
I guess, like it's so strange to say, yeah, saying that.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
I was like, what's funny? Yeah, and she's still single.
So it's literally just been me and her this whole time.
So my family went from one person to forty one.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
So she's never been in a relationship since you guys
have since you've been around on the earth, it's always
been you and her.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Married Wow, yeah, so it's slowly just been me and her.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
So what was that like? You know, sort of when
you're young, when you're a baby. When you're an infant,
you know no better, and you only start to sort
of understand how other people might live as you get
older and you're witnessing it. Did you have that moment
of like, wait a minute, something's different here.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
I remember I know exactly where I was in my
neighborhood in La. I was being driven home from preschool.
I know exactly where I was when I was like, hey, mom,
how come all my other classmates have some big man
picking him up and I don't have one? And I
(27:26):
remember what she said. It just stuck with me. She
was like, well, be every family looks different some people
some some kids have two dads, some kids have one mom,
Some kids have a mom and a dad. Some some
kids have two sets of parents. Some kids are raised
by their grandma. Just every family looks different. Curtain. I
(27:46):
was like okay, And that stuck with me, like for years,
and I just remember, like, you know, it's La. I'd
see gay parents and then a kid walking down the
street and I wouldn't think anything happened. It was completely
normal to me. I remember when it was like fourth
grade and kids would be like like I would be like,
(28:09):
I don't have a dad. And kids would be like, uh,
that's not possible. Everyone has a dad. And I remember
thinking I was so smart because I was like, these idiots,
I don't have it. I'm smarter than them. You don't
have to have a dad. And then it was like
middle school was like wait, I think everyone has a dad.
(28:33):
I remember like sex classes in sixth grade and I
was like, wait, I know there's something up with a
sperm bank. I think is what it's called. I was
learning about sex. I was like, I think it was
like once a year. I checked with my mom, was like, wait,
I'm not adopted, right. I felt like a normal kid always.
(28:54):
I think that was an adult hearing how much my
story resonates with people. What makes me like, go, wait,
am I different? Not in a bad way, but like this,
this dynamic is special.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
I guess no, Yeah, well no, it's true. I mean
you you know, with a platform like you have and
with it sort of blowing up the way that it did,
you are sort of giving people comfort with your story.
You know what I'm saying. You You know, I've been
(29:31):
through gnarly anxiety through my life, and you know I'm
on lexapro and yeah, it's just that you just battle
with it and it's not debilitating necessarily, and you know
cerebrally that there are other people dealing with the same shit,
if not worse, that you are dealing with, similar to
maybe what you know the people that you are speaking to.
(29:54):
But when you connect with someone who is actually feeling
the anxiety, who is going through the same thing that
you're going through, and you're actually connecting with that person
and talking to them and not hearing their story, there
you do you do feel, you know, some weight that
can be lifted off. You know you're not alone. Even
(30:17):
though you know you're not alone, it has to be tangible,
and I think that's what your story has done for
a lot of people, you know.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Yeah, I also think I didn't think about this when
I was posting it. I was just, first of all,
all of this happened. I was doing a summerstock contract
this summer. I was in a state I've never lived
in in my life, and I literally just posted the
video and then went to rehearsal and I was like,
it's my phone like heating up. I think that I
(30:46):
didn't think about when I posted it. A lot of
people resonate with what I had to say one because
it's crazy, but two, a lot of people comment, I
love how happy you are about this? I love they
love how excited I am about all this, how happy
I am. And it's just I think it's a breath
of fresh air because a lot of people say, like
all news is bad news, like everyone just wants gossip,
(31:07):
and you know tragedies sell better. But to me, this
is a happy story beginning. Mill and I have a
great mom. I had a great first eighteen years of
my life. And when I found these forty people and
they're amazing too, and it's just and I found him
when I literally thought I never would ever And it's
(31:29):
just a happy story anything. People resonate with that. And
so I think if you're if you're someone who is
like a miner and you know you're don't conceived and
you can't go reaching out for people yet, to people yet,
if they see my video, they'd be like, oh, like this,
there might be a happy ending just like this.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
Might not have forty some right, but it could be great.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
A lesson to is bigger life lesson you just didn't.
You have to embrace where you are, Embrace who you are,
Embrace your story. Everyone's story is different, and everyone's story
is forever shifting and changing, you know. I mean you
think about sort of your life up until the point
that you realize, holy fuck, I've got forty one siblings,
(32:16):
you know, So we can't change what exists, what is
actually happening. So why not embrace it, you know, good
and bad. That's the lesson.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
I have a question. Yeah, a lot of people ask me,
and it doesn't make any sense to me, but they're like,
do you view your siblings as you know, like the
same as siblings you grew up with? And I'm like,
well no, because I didn't grow up with them. They're
like not what I mean? Like, like, do you view
them the way other.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
People view their siblings?
Speaker 3 (32:59):
And I don't know, Like I don't know what that's like. So, like,
you growing up with Kate, how do you how do
you view her now as an adult? Now that you
were both adults? I mean you adults for all time,
but you're both adults. How has growing up with her
changed your relationship? Because for me, literally like you and Kate,
(33:24):
except we didn't grow up with you.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
I guess the difference is is that we were born
two and a half years apart and spent our entire
childhood growing up together. So you're going to sort of
go through all of the ups and downs of what
it is to be a sibling, and again, circumstances are
going to dictate that your relationship as well. You know,
(33:47):
we were in my parents were in a divorce, and
I was sort of fending for myself in a way,
meaning like with my own emotions. I didn't have the
capacity to be a good big brother to her when
she just needed love from me. But I was I
(34:08):
was inequipped. I couldn't do it, you know, because I
was sort of just trying to protect myself in that moment.
And then I didn't like her. And she was always
fabulous and performing and look at me shit and da
da da dah, which of course is what made her
a star, you know, and I was like Jesus Kate,
(34:28):
just like relax. But we have now become sort of
best of friends. You know, it's been years since we
have been but you know, she became famous, she married Chris,
they were off doing their thing. We were we had
lived sort of separate lives, you know, we were still connected,
but it wasn't that tight tight, tight sibling bond, you know.
(34:53):
And then years ago it's just sort of happened where
we matured into our relation relationship, you know what I mean,
and then we became best friends. But the other the
beauty of it too is you can go weeks without
talking and it's okay, you know, we it's that connected
that I love you good, You're good, We're good, all right, cool,
(35:16):
you know, and then two weeks later we have a
really beautiful conversation. You know, there's that comfortability. So to
answer your question, I mean, it would be fun for
you to find someone that you really connect with and
bring that person into your life, you know what I mean,
and have a true sibling relationship if you so desire it,
(35:39):
of course, because it's there, that blood is there, and
the connection is there, and then it's just about sort
of nurturing it and wanting to have a human contact
connection with one or two of You're forty one. I
have a similar story. I mean, I gotta I've told
the story on my podcast. But I get a note
(36:01):
under my door I come home. It's like, it says
his name, please call me. I have some information about
your father. I'm like, what the fuck? Okay, long, long
story short, this dude turns out to be my half
brother because my dad, you know, he was given up
(36:22):
for adoption at a very young age. And he contacted
me and I, you know, five, ten, six years ago,
I was like, oh shit, I have a half brother
that I didn't know about. He looks like it's like
six years ago this happened. He looks like me. He
looks like my dad, you know. And then I met
(36:43):
his son, you know, who's like my nephew or yeah,
and so it's just it's crazy and it's cool as shit,
you know.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
So I have Yeah, so that story with your half brother.
It's me times and that's my situation. If you're trying
and put yourself in.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
My it's crazy. It's crazy. But yeah, I mean it
would be fun to like connect with someone or you're
in Indiana. Now where do you live live?
Speaker 3 (37:11):
I live live in LA.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
And I'm sure you have siblings who are in La. No,
not really really, you know, I mean, do you connect
with a few more than others or have like that
bond you know? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Oh my god, I love all of them like we're family.
Like I love all of them. They're I sister. Seventeen.
We get on FaceTime, we'll talk about any well. I
literally will just call her up. She'll answer to call me.
I'll answer, oh my god. Like we just we match
each other.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's so fun, dude. I mean you
have forty one siblings. Like someone, it's like all you
can eat whatever. If you're going through something, you're a psychologist,
let me call you or you can. Yeah. Congratulations, this
is very cool. You are now part of a massive,
(38:10):
massive family I know. And uh, good luck, dude.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
Have you ever see me on the sidewalk in l A.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
I will you too, and good luck, good luck with
your career and and uh, you know, I hope to
see you on the stage on the screen someday, someday. No, no,
you got to go to school, buddy, You gotta go. Brother,
Hosts And Creators
Oliver Hudson
Kate Hudson
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