Ghostbusters’ Ernie Hudson talks about the secret of his 40-year marriage

Ernie Hudson said he learned the secret to a successful marriage after an argument over toilet paper.

Years ago, the 78-year-old Ghostbusters icon had his moment of realization during a seemingly trivial dispute with his wife of nearly 40 years, Linda Kingsberg, over the orientation of the toilet paper roll.

Despite the disagreement, he decided to let it go, realizing that such small disputes didn’t really matter much in the larger context of their relationship.

“I said, ‘I don’t care. If it makes you happy, I’ll do it that way. If opening the door is a problem for you, then I will open it. “Why should I fight? I’m fine,” she said. People On Wednesday.

“I love her for who she is and not for what I want or think she should be,” he said of Linda, with whom he shares two children. “So I trust that she will be herself and if she’s happy, then I’m fine.”

Hudson also shares two children from his previous marriage to Jeannie Moore, whom he married when they were “just kids,” according to the star.

“I was 18, she was 16. The marriage ended, the children came with me, which surprised me,” he explained. “But I felt like I never wanted to do that again.”

However, after meeting Linda, his perspective on walking down the aisle changed again.

“We were together basically nine years before I finally said, ‘You know what? We are together. So let’s go ahead and get married,” the Quantum Leap alum explained.

The couple would marry in 1985.

During their time together, Hudson said she embraced the art of commitment, particularly in managing her friendships with other women.

“I like women as friends,” he added. “I find it’s more interesting to talk to women because they talk about their children and emotions and feelings and things like that.”

He noted that most of his friends were women, but acknowledges that this dynamic did not always lead to a healthy marriage.

‘Although I can explain this relationship, I am more concerned about [my wife] now and I know that she is my friend now. And I can’t spend two hours on the phone with my best girlfriend and expect her to understand me,” she stated.

‘If it were the other way around, how would I feel?’

Hudson played Dr. Winston Zeddemore in the 1984 supernatural blockbuster Ghostbusters alongside co-stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Annie Potts and William Atherton.

He, along with these co-stars, returned to reprise their roles in the 2021 film Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and now star in the latest sequel Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.