Kate Hudson: Glam Girl Next Door

With a hot new movie and major-league man, Kate Hudson seems anything but normal. But the bubbly blonde is just like the rest of us (with fancier clothes, of course). Click here to watch the video, see the full photo shoot of Kate Hudson, plus her most memorable red-carpet moments.

By Nancy Jo Sales

In his best season ever, the New York Yankees' record-breaking third baseman Alex Rodriguez could be seen knocking 'em out of the park - helping catapult his team to victory in the World Series - as a certain A-list blonde jumped up and down in the stands, cheering him on. New Yorkers dubbed her a good-luck charm.

Improbably, she was Kate Hudson, the Academy Award-nominated actress, daughter of Goldie Hawn, and one of the stars of the dazzling Rob Marshall-directed musical Nine (in wide release on Christmas Day).

Even in gym clothes without any makeup on, her streaked blonde hair pulled back in a tossed-off bun, Kate glows. And she can certainly turn it out on the red carpet. She's been seen in everything from leather by Chrome Hearts to gowns by Versace and Chanel, recently turning heads at a Cartier event in a black Rachel Roy gown with a down-to-there neckline.

"At heart, I'm such a hippie," she says. "I don't like structured things. I'll put on a tight, sexy little thing that I can't walk in, and that's fun. But I like the flowy and comfortable. I just want to make really beautiful clothes that I want to put on every day."

But on the night of November 14, 2008, she was dressed to the nines. Sporting a little cobalt-blue Alexander Wang dress with an almost-bare back, Kate, 30, reportedly met A-Rod, 34, at the reopening of the Fontainebleau hotel in Miami .

Spotted all over the country together in the last few months - strolling with their kids in Seattle (Rodriguez has Natasha, five, and Ella, 20 months, from his marriage to Cynthia Rodriguez, while Kate has Ryder, five, with her ex-husband, Black Crowes frontman Chris Robinson), kissing at a Yankees family picnic, and dining out in Westchester County - Kate and A-Rod seem to be getting pretty serious.

"I'm not pregnant," she says. "I can't go two months without being" - according to the tabloids, that is - "pregnant, engaged, or breaking up because I'm too needy, which is always the one they love. I'm not needy. You kind of have to laugh it off, but it can kind of screw up other things around it.

"I have a child, and there are people involved, and it's unfair to talk about somebody else, especially when you're not in that place yet to be discussing those things," Kate goes on. "If I was sitting here with a belly out to here, I'd be talking about what the relationship is and how important that is in my life right now."

So does that mean she isn't sure of Rodriguez yet? "You're horrible, so horrible," she says, deflecting the question with a big, infectious laugh. Isn't she moving fast? "People don't know where I'm moving," she counters good-naturedly. "They're just reading psychobabble in these [tabloid] magazines." Even when confronted with the evidence - a picture of her kissing A-Rod - she gamely holds her ground. "There's a guy that's shooting probably 60 frames a minute. That was a sideswipe on the cheek. That wasn't even a kiss." So she's not in love with this guy? "I quickly kissed the cheek," she maintains. "And I remember one of the headlines the next day said, MAKEOUT SESSION. What is wrong with people?

Today, though, the most important man in Kate's life is her son Ryder, whom she nicknames Buddy. She and her ex maintain a close friendship. "Chris is a great dad," she says. "I feel really lucky. When we first met, it was so immediate. I had no question in my mind I was supposed to marry him and have children with him."

As for her divorce, she says, "It just wasn't working. It was that simple. I loved him like crazy." And there was no infidelity involved in their decision to separate, she says, despite gossip to the contrary: "That's not what happened."

Regardless of their split, Robinson and Kate amicably share in the parenting of their son. She has found that single motherhood "can be okay. I feel like I've learned so much. The routine [of marriage] can kill me. That becomes a difficult balance, too, because I feel like my son needs his routine, but for me I need to step out of my routine. I haven't figured it all out yet."

Meanwhile, her career has continued to flourish. And now Nine (which stars a powerhouse of talents, including Daniel Day-Lewis, Penélope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren, and Judi Dench), which casts Kate as Stephanie Necrophuros, a magazine editor and sexpot, promises to show audiences a whole new side to her. "Kate's a life force," Kidman says. "I think what's compelling about her is that she truly sparkles."

Kate sings and dances in the film- a first for her. "I love it," she says. Asked to show off her skills, she laughs and then breaks out into a few bars of the Aretha Franklin classic "Ain't No Way." Her voice is melodic and sure. "I'd like to do more musical theater," she says. "Nine was so much more rewarding to me personally than other things I've done - it was really emotional for me to do the number I do in the film ['Cinema Italiano'] - because I realized I haven't been utilizing some things that I love to do."

Read the full interview from Harper's Bazaar

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Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc.