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Ex: In a searingly raw interview with The Mail on Sunday last night, Bill Hudson (pictured) veering between tears of sadness and flashes of anger, vowed to ‘break all ties’ with his eldest children, actors Kate and Oliver

Children: Goldie Hawn pictured with her daughter, Kate Hudson, (left) and son Oliver Hudson, (right)

Taken more than 30 years ago, it showed a smiling Oliver and Kate as happy children, posing with their father.

It was the caption beneath the photograph that cut Bill’s heart to the quick. Addressing his message to his sister, Oliver wrote: ‘Happy Abandonment Day….@katehudson.’

The post went viral, spawning thousands of comments as social media seethed with debate about absent fathers and whether being a biological father automatically earns a man the right to be called ‘dad’.

Almost Famous actress Kate twisted the knife further by posting an intimate black and white photograph of herself alongside Goldie’s long-term love Kurt Russell saying: ‘Pa, just simply… thank you. Happy Father’s Day. I love you to the moon and back.’

The offending tweet: Oliver Hudson posted this picture of his father Bill, and sister Kate on Father’s Day

An undated photograph of Bill Hudson and Goldie Hawn – they went on to have two children together

And as if to rub salt into Bill’s wounds, Oliver, too, posted a picture of himself with Kurt, adding the words: ‘Happy Father’s Day, Pa.’

For Bill, the anguish slowly turned to anger as the headlines raged and his ‘phone rang off the hook’.

But he has maintained a dignified silence – until now.

In a searingly raw interview with The Mail on Sunday last night, Bill, veering between tears of sadness and flashes of anger, vowed to ‘break all ties’ with his eldest children.

‘I say to them now, ‘“I set you free,” he pronounced, his voice breaking. ‘I had five birth children but I now consider myself a father of three. I no longer recognise Oliver and Kate as my own.

‘I would ask them to stop using the Hudson name. They are no longer a part of my life. Oliver’s Instagram post was a malicious, vicious, premeditated attack. He is dead to me now. As is Kate. I am mourning their loss even though they are still walking this earth.’

Kate twisted the knife by posting an intimate photograph of herself alongside Goldie’s long-term love Kurt Russell saying: ‘Pa, just simply… thank you. Happy Father’s Day. I love you to the moon and back’

Oliver, too, posted a picture of himself with Kurt, adding the words: ‘Happy Father’s Day, Pa’

It is a sad denouement to a decades-long family saga which, Bill says, ‘is more messed up and sad than any Hollywood screenplay could ever be’.

For years, Bill and former wife Goldie have bickered publicly about Goldie’s claims that he all but abandoned the two famous siblings.

Last night, in a blistering attack on Goldie, Tinseltown’s favourite ‘ditzy blonde’, Bill accused her of ‘wilfully alienating’ him from their two children.

At the heart of the matter is what Bill calls the ‘Hollywoodisation’ of Goldie’s story.

‘When we split up, she never had a bad word to say about me,’ he says. ‘But when Kurt came on the scene, the narrative changed and I became the big, bad wolf. I would say to her “Goldie, why are you trashing me and saying I’m an absent father when it’s simply not the case?” and she’d laugh and go “Oh Bill, you know it makes for a better story”.’

Eventually, Bill says, the fiction became fact as first Kate, now 36, and then Oliver, 38, ‘drifted away’ from him and rejected his repeated pleas to remain part of their lives. He lays the blame at Goldie’s door. I believe the drip, drip, drip of poison which started when they were kids finally took hold,’ he says. ‘Goldie wanted to create this myth of a perfect family with Kurt and she wanted me out.’

Goldie Hawn and Bill Hudson in happier times. For years, Bill and former wife Goldie have bickered publicly about Goldie’s claims that he all but abandoned the two famous siblings

Things came to a final showdown a week ago with Oliver’s bitter post.

‘That was like a dagger to the heart,’ says Bill as he sits in the sun-dappled courtyard of a hotel near his ranch home in Malibu, California. ‘It’s time for the truth to come out.’

At 65, Bill still has the rugged good looks and easy charm that captivated Goldie when she was at the height of her fame. During their marriage, she became the highest-paid female star in the world thanks to quirky comedies such as Shampoo, There’s A Girl In My Soup and Private Benjamin. When the pair met in the first-class cabin of a New York to LA flight in 1975, Bill was a successful star in his own right with his group The Hudson Brothers, (‘the One Direction of our day,’ he quips). He had his own TV show and performed alongside The Beach Boys, The Osmonds and The Monkees.

‘The attraction was instant. I invited her out to dinner that night and that was it. The 𝑠e𝑥 was mind-blowing. Even when everything else in the relationship turned sour, the 𝑠e𝑥 was always amazing.’

The pair wed in 1976 when Goldie was already pregnant with Oliver.

When their son was born at LA’s Cedars-Sinai hospital, Oliver suffered from the life-threatening condition meconium aspiration, when a newborn accidentally inhales contaminated amniotic fluid.

‘Oliver was in isolation for three days,’ says Bill. ‘Goldie and I were beside ourselves. She was really sick and I’d go from her bedside to the neonatal intensive care unit. The doctors didn’t think Oliver would make it. I was only 26 and in a state of shock.

‘Goldie and I were sobbing but Oliver pulled through and from that moment he was our precious miracle.

‘He was my first-born. I adored that child. When Kate came along, I loved her with all my heart, too. There was this deep love among the four of us for years. And that’s what makes it so difficult to say goodbye.’

Actors Oliver Hudson, Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell arrive at amfAR The Foundation for AIDS in 2013

Bill says clouds formed in the relationship over his wife’s ‘free spirit’ and desire for an open relationship.

‘Goldie was having affairs. She told me pretty much on our wedding night she wanted an open marriage, that she couldn’t imagine being faithful to one man for the rest of her life.’

When Goldie made a film, Cactus Flower, in London, her mother Laura moved into the marital home – a magnificent £10 million beachside villa in Malibu – and helped Bill care for the children.

‘Oliver was three and Kate four months old. Goldie went to Europe for a month. I stayed home on Daddy duty. I later found out she’d been sleeping with one of her co-stars, French actor Yves Rénier.

‘I wanted a traditional marriage but Goldie couldn’t settle. Eventually I moved out.’

The marriage ended in 1981. Bill went on to have a long-term relationship with Love Story actress Ali MacGraw, before marrying Cindy Williams, star of TV comedy Laverne & Shirley. They had two children Emily, now 31, and Zachary, 28, before that marriage also ended in divorce.

His youngest child is Lalania, nine, from a long-term relationship with a woman to whom he remains ‘exceptionally close’.

Meanwhile, Goldie met Kurt Russell in 1983. And while the pair have never married, their relationship is considered one of the happiest in Hollywood. ‘When we first split up, I took a house on the beach in Malibu to stay close to the kids,’ says Bill. ‘I was a part of their lives for years. Kate and Oliver came over at weekends, there were family holidays.

In fact, the photograph that Oliver posted on Instagram was taken by Cindy while we were on holiday in Florida. Goldie wanted a vacation with Kurt because they’d just got together and so Cindy and I took the kids to DisneyWorld. Everything was cool.’

But he says Goldie used her increasing fame and financial superiority to ‘freeze’ him out.

‘I call it parental alienation. We had a custody arrangement but Goldie constantly flouted it. I’d turn up to see the kids and would discover Goldie had taken them on the private jet to her home in Colorado.

‘She gave interviews about her “wonderful” relationship with Kurt and how the kids called him “Pa”. She described me as an absent father. I’d call her and go “Goldie, how can you say that?” but she’d just reply: “It’s a better story.” ’

As Kate’s fame grew she, too, accused her father of being an absentee dad: ‘There was never a birthday card,’ she complained, to which Bill responds: ‘Rubbish! I sent birthday cards every year.

‘I ring her up every birthday, still do. The same with Oliver. I bumped into Oliver fairly recently in a supermarket in Malibu and he gave me a hug. I always thought Oliver could be the peacemaker, that somehow he would help bring our fractured family back together.

Actor Kurt Russell, with Goldie Hawn and her children, actress Kate Hudson and actor Oliver Hudson in 2004

‘Goldie poisoned them against me. She told the kids I’d moved to Portland. I did go to Portland for eight months to make an album but then I came back to LA. I never abandoned my family. I never walked away. I wanted to be a father to Kate and Oliver but Goldie made it harder and harder for me to see them. It’s all about control. What Goldie wants, Goldie gets.’

He recalled going to mediation during their custody battle. ‘Goldie grabbed my forearm as we were leaving and said to me: “It’s all about the money and power, babe.”’

When Oliver and Kate were in their early teens, Bill decided to end the court battles and told the children his door was always open to them. ‘Oliver would come and stay with me. We’d go fishing, have sleep-overs. But Kate drifted away.’

The pair enjoyed an uneasy rapprochement when Kate started dating Black Crowes singer Chris Robinson, father of her elder son Ryder, 11. She also has a three-year-old son Bingham with British rocker Matt Bellamy, from whom she split last year after four years.

‘At one point, I was writing a letter to my children every week for a year. Did those letters ever get to them? Who knows? When I read some of the comments on social media, it was so hurtful. People believe the bull****. Well, I’m here to say it’s just not true.’ At first, Bill picks his words carefully over Kate’s Father’s Day photo of herself with Kurt. ‘It was an intimate shot and, as her father, I found it inappropriate and unsettling. I’ll leave it at that,’ he says.

Goldie Hawn and Bill Hudson at the 1975 Oscars (pictured left) and an undated picture of them (right)

Then, angrily, he adds: ‘She wants to be Kurt’s daughter? Well then, take his name, stop using mine.’

He has removed photographs of Kate and Oliver from his home and even thrown away their knitted baby booties ‘which I carried in the glove compartment of every car I’ve ever owned for good luck’.

Last week, Oliver posted a reply to one fan in which he was unrepentant, emphasising his closeness to Kurt Russell: ‘What started out as what I thought as a joke has turned into something more. And I embrace that. I’ve done and continue to do a lot of work on myself to better understand what make me tick. Yes, science links us but love binds us. OH + KR = ♥’

Bill is clearly still deeply wounded. He says: ‘Oliver could have picked up the phone and called me but he hasn’t. What shocks me is that this was clearly premeditated. He chose the photograph and posted it on Father’s Day, when he knew it would cause maximum pain. Oliver has lived in the shadow of his mother and sister all his life. Maybe he wanted to be in the headlines?

‘If what he wanted was me out of their lives, then he’s succeeded. I don’t want to see either of my eldest children ever again. It’s over.’

Goldie Hawn, Kate and Oliver Hudson did not comment last night.