We all get a little starstruck around our celebrity idols, and nobody understands that better than Kate Hudson and Gwyneth Paltrow. Though the actresses have been friends for years, their first meeting was a little, well, awkward. And, to be honest, you can’t really call it a meeting at all. Because according to Kate, the first time she saw Gwyneth she actually just “sort of stalked her” rather than introducing herself.

On the Thursday, January 17 episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, which Kate, 39, and her mom, Goldie Hawn, were guest cohosting, the friends chatted about relationships with ex-husbands and told personal stories. While talking about how Gwyneth, 46, and Goldie, 73, met — “you knew my parents … and I was always so starstruck,” Gwyneth confessed to the Overboard actress — Kate had a little story to share of her own. “That’s a good segue into my story of when I met Gwyneth,” Kate teased. “Because I didn’t really meet her, I just sort of stalked her.”

“It was the short-hair Gwyneth years,” she playfully said. “I was still in high school and there was this store called Tracy Ross and me and my best friend, Sara Foster, were in there shopping. There were only two other girls in there and it was Gwyneth and Winona [Ryder]. And we were like,” she continued, mock dropping her mouth open in shock. “I watched you go and get all the clothes and I was like, ‘What’s she getting?’ I clocked all the outfits and you got Katayone Adeli pants … I remember! And then I was like, ‘Hey!’ and you were like, ‘Hi,’ and that was it.”

“And that was the beginning of a love story,” Goldie chimed in jokingly, but we totally relate. There’s nothing quite like spotting one of your favorite celebs out in public — though if we knew that our mom was friends with our idol’s mom, we’d probably do a lot more than buy the same pants and shyly say hi.

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Heck, if we had any connection to our idols, we’d probably march right up and start chatting. But, yeah, okay — we’d definitely “sort of stalk” them, too.