Ethan Hawke ‘Vowed’ His Kids to Never Publicly Discuss Uma Thurman Divorce

Ethan Hawke made one major promise to his kids when splitting from their mom, Uma Thurman.

“The public eye is like gasoline, but what makes divorce hard is the stuff that makes it hard for everyone — the family elements, how to help the kids through it,” Hawke, 55, told the Los Angeles Times in an interview published on Thursday, November 20. “I’m so envious of people who have amicable splits.”

Hawke quickly stopped himself from discussing the topic any further.

“I can’t really talk about this because I vowed to my kids so many times not to talk about the divorce in public,” he explained. “But one thing I will say is if you get the privilege of traveling the world, you realize that everywhere men and women have a tremendous amount of difficulty staying married.”

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Hawke and Thurman, 55, were married from 1998 to 2005. The former couple shares daughter Maya, 27, and son Levon, 23.

This is not the first time this year that Hawke has reflected on his divorce from Thurman. During a September interview with GQ U.K., Hawke said it was “humiliating” that their split made so many headlines in the early 2000s.

“It’s almost humiliating even when they’re saying positive things,” the actor added.

Elsewhere in the interview, Hawke explained why actors are often falling in love on set. (He and Thurman started dating while filming the 1997 film Gattaca.)

“Have you ever played Spin the Bottle?” Hawke said. “There’s a certain intimacy to the work that we do. Imaginative intimacy.”

He added, “It’s such a high. It feels dangerous and thrilling. It turns the temperature up in your life. It can be like falling in love at summer camp. It doesn’t have any connection to the dailiness of real life. That’s the danger of it.”

Hawke has since moved on with wife Ryan Shawhughes, whom he married in 2008. Initially, Hawke admitted that he was not interested in expanding his family any further — until he met Shawhughes.

“When I split up I was hellbent on not having any more kids and I wanted to be single for the rest of my life,” he recalled. “But then I made a best friend and I liked kissing her.”

They’ve since welcomed daughters Clementine Jane, 17, and Indiana, 14.

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Hawke further discussed his relationship with his kids in the same L.A. Times profile.

“My kids never need to ask what I think about anything because I never shut up,” he said.

Of course, Hawke was also asked about his appearance in the music video for Taylor Swift’s 2024 song “Fortnight.” The actor said that gig did not make him any closer to his younger two daughters, surprisingly. (Hawke’s eldest daughter, Maya, recently confirmed that she was the one who gave Swift Hawke’s number.)

“This is an example of things being not what they seem. Did I do it for my teenage daughters? No. I took them to a Taylor Swift concert for them,” he said. “But I did it because Taylor asked and I was flattered that she knew what Dead Poets Society is. But strangely, it’s the one thing that I think my kids wish I hadn’t done.”

Hawke explained, “Because I took Taylor away from them! They had their own relationship with Taylor’s music and now Dad got a Christmas card from her, or whatever. It was, like, ‘Tchuh! What’s Dua Lipa doing now?’ You know?”