“You make me sick”: the worst date of Goldie Hawn’s life
Everyone has at least one story about a first date gone horribly wrong. There is simply too much potential drama in the scenario for that not to be the case. But you’d think that celebrities would be at least partially exempt from such mediocre discomfort. Sure, they might get swarmed by the paparazzi on a night out with another famous person or accidentally end up on the wrong private island, but a simple mismatch of attraction seems impossible when you move into a social sphere populated almost exclusively by the blindingly good-looking. According to 1970s ‘It Girl’ Goldie Hawn, however, it is indeed possible.
Hawn grew up dancing and dreamed of being on the Broadway stage before she made her move to movies. Her first steady gig was as a go-go dancer in and around New York, but although she had trained as a ballerina from the age of three, comedy was where her true talents lay.
After a stint working as a dancer in Hollywood, she started appearing in sketch comedy shows, where her perfect comic timing made her stand out even next to legendary comedians like Dick Martin and Lily Tomlin. With her huge blue eyes and blonde hair, Hawn was forced to play a dumb blonde caricature, but she somehow managed to turn the reductive stereotype into a scene-stealing tour de force.
At just 25, she won an Oscar for ‘Best Supporting Actress’ for her role as (what else?) a ditzy secretary in the hit 1969 comedy Cactus Flower. Even now, the Academy Awards rarely honour comedic performances, but for a young female performer to win an Oscar in the 1960s for a role rife with sexist stereotypes is a testament to Hawn’s abilities. From there, she went on to star in numerous comedies, including Private Benjamin, Overboard, Death Becomes Her, and The First Wives Club, cementing her place as comedy royalty.
Given her reputation for brains and beauty, you might assume that Hawn could skip the whole first-date horror show altogether, but apparently, some things are universal, whether you have an Oscar or not. During an appearance on the Graham Norton Show in 2017, the actor revealed that the most terrible date she ever went on was, by any standard, terrible.
“I threw up,” she said. “He tried to kiss me, and it made me sick. And I literally rolled down the window and threw up. And I said, ‘I’m so sorry, but you make me sick.’ It was a bad moment.”
Now, Hawn did not reveal the identity of the man whose mere presence made her feel physically ill, nor did she elaborate on when it happened. It is safe to assume, however, that it was not Kurt Russell, who has been her partner since the ‘80s, but other than that, it’s anyone’s guess. Hopefully, the mystery man has done what we all do after a terrible date – obsess about it endlessly for a few years before feebly rolling it out as a dinner joke to pretend it no longer stings.
