Kate Winslet has spoken candidly about how she navigates co-parenting and blended families — and what she had to say is actually pretty impressive.
For reference, Kate shares her eldest child, Mia, with painter and film director Jim Threapleton, who she married in 1998. They split six months after Mia was born in 2000, and were divorced by 2001.
Kate then met director Sam Mendes, who she married in 2003 and shares a son, Joe, with. She announced that she and Sam had split in 2010, and they got divorced a year later.
Then, Kate met Richard Branson’s nephew Edward Smith — who was legally known as Ned Rocknroll between 2008 and 2019 — and they married in 2012, and have been together ever since. They share a son called Bear.
Kate’s children are now 25, 21, and 12 years old, and in a new podcast appearance, the star gave some seriously rare insight into her private life as she detailed how her family spends Christmas Day — and it’s pretty unorthodox.
Speaking on Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place podcast, Kate said that Christmas Day is always “a real laugh.” She added: “It’s just fantastic. Everyone’s climbing into bed and all doing stockings, and somebody’s bringing mom a cup of tea, which I love.”
“I just love all being together, heaps of food, usually me and my son cooking, he’s always cooked alongside me — oh, it’s great,” Kate went on. “Lots of people, there’s always visitors, it’s great fun. And games, lots of silly games.”
Fearne then asked how Kate balances Christmas with “kids, ex-partners, and co-parenting,” and Kate revealed that it has now become somewhat of a tradition for her family to spend the day with Mia’s father, Jim, and his new family.
“That’s never been any kind of challenge, actually, at all,” Kate said of co-parenting. “In actual fact, for the majority of the last eight years, my daughter’s dad and his lovely wife, who I’m just so grateful to have in my life, and their two children, we’ve all had Christmases together.”
“And actually, for his daughters, who are 12 and 15, it’s now weird if they aren’t with us,” she went on. “Mia’s dad and I cook the Christmas dinner sometimes. I haven’t ever actually talked about that because we just get on with it, I think there’s a strange fascination in the media when high-profile couples, or people who are in the public eye, have separated. There’s a huge flurry of excitement around: ‘Oh my god, they get on!’ Of course we bloody do!”
“And Jim’s wife, Julie, she’s just such a spectacular lady, and I feel so grateful to have had her as Mia’s stepmother,” Kate added. “There’s something extraordinary about another mother in the world loving your child the same way that you do, and I just feel incredibly grateful to have that.”
A seriously valid point. What do you make of Kate’s comments? Let me know down below!