Single and smiling

CEBU, Philippines – Kate Hudson showcases her signature, bright look on the cover of Harper Bazaar magazine’s December 2015/January 2016 issue, and in an accompanying interview, she talks about being single for the first time in five years.

“It’s nice to get acquainted with myself alone,” the 36-year-old actress says. “You know, the goal when you get into a relationship is not to be out of the relationship. It’s to try to stay in the relationship. But if it doesn’t work, you can’t force things.”

Hudson and first husband Chris Robinson were married for six years until 2007 and share an 11-year-old son, Ryder. In 2011, the blonde beauty and Muse frontman Matthew Bellamy began dating, got engaged and welcomed son Bingham, who is now four years old.

She and the rocker split in 2014. Since then, she has been linked to “Dancing With the Stars” regular Derek Hough and pop singer Nick Jonas. No one has confirmed a romance.

“Relationships ending are painful, and you can choose to carry that or you can choose to reframe it,” she told Allure magazine in comments published last month. “If Matt and I had a great relationship, we would still be together, but we chose to move on because we had different visions of how we wanted to live our lives. That doesn’t mean, though, that we can’t rebuild something that would be the best thing for the kids.”

In her interview with Harper’s Bazaar, Hudson talked about the difficulty of being away from her sons when she works. The star recently starred with Bill Murray in the movie “Rock the Kasbah,” voiced a character in “Kung Fu Panda 3” and is set to appear in the new drama film “Mother’s Day.”

“I think a lot of people, especially when you’re a woman, you have kids, and work on movies, it’s hard because you’re away from them,” she says. “There’s nothing lazy about it. You go to work, get on the first plane home even if it’s for eight hours, go back to work. I don’t want to be away from my family, I love it so much. But I also just enjoy being on movie sets.”