Plenty of people from all over the world move to Los Angeles with hopes of making it big in Hollywood. However, once they’ve become pretty big stars, some people move out of the city — and some leave the US altogether.
Here are 11 American celebs who moved out of the US and why:
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1. In 2024, Eva Longoria told Marie Claire that she and her family have been splitting their time between Spain [where she often works] and Mexico [where her husband, José Bastón, is from] for the last few years.
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She said, “I had my whole adult life here. But even before [the pandemic], it was changing. The vibe was different. And then COVID happened, and it pushed it over the edge. Whether it’s the homelessness or the taxes, not that I want to shit on California — it just feels like this chapter in my life is done now.
…I’m privileged. I get to escape and go somewhere. Most Americans aren’t so lucky. They’re going to be stuck in this dystopian country, and my anxiety and sadness is for them.”
Her comments led to online speculation that she’d moved out of the US because of the 2024 election. So, to set the record straight, Eva called into her friend Ana Navarro’s podcast The View: Behind the Table.
She asked Ana, “Will you please let them know I didn’t move out of Spain, I mean the United States, because of Trump?”
Then, Eva added, “I’ve been in Europe working for almost three years. By the way, the article says that. People just grabbed some clickbait stuff to be divisive, which makes me so sad, you know. Everything you say is just meant to be divisive when we can’t be that way right now.
…I didn’t leave because of the political environment. I left because my work took me there.”
2. In a 2024 Instagram video, Britney Spears shared that she moved to Mexico because of the “extremely mean and cruel” treatment she’d faced from paparazzi.
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She said, “It really kind of hurts my feelings that the paparazzi make my face look like I’m wearing, like, a white Jason mask. It doesn’t even look like me. They’ve always been incredibly cruel to me, the paparazzi and pictures and the way they’ve illustrated me to be in some of it.”
3. Lindsay Lohan and her family live in Dubai. She relocated to the UAE in 2014.
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According to Cosmopolitan, she moved to Dubai because paparazzi are illegal.
In 2024, she told Flaunt, “It’s still a city. So it’s pretty similar. I mean, I do anything that anyone else does in their daily life. I’m up with my son in the mornings, I do breakfast with him, go to my pilates, come home for lunch, and go to the park, the same things that any normal mom would do in their daily life. Or you would do in LA. I think the only difference is the time zone shift. There’s a big disconnect between when work starts for me and other places. I can do my work calls with New York at like three or four, around this time, and then LA picks up later.”
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4. In 2024, People reported that Ellen DeGeneres fell in love with a house in the Cotswolds in the UK and moved there with her wife, Portia de Rossi.
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Per sources that spoke to The Wrap and TMZ, the couple reportedly moved abroad following the results of the 2024 presidential election.
5. Lily Collins and her husband, Charlie McDowell, relocated to Copenhagen, Denmark in 2023.
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The couple honeymooned in Denmark in 2021, and they co-own the media production and real estate company Case Study Copenhagen.
6. Janet Jackson has lived in London, UK since about 2016.
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According to the Guardian, she stayed in the city after her 2017 divorce from billionaire Wissam Al Mana, who is from Qatar but lives in London, because they co-parent their son.
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7. In April 2024, Richard Gere told Vanity Fair Spain that he and his family planned to move to Spain, where his wife, Alejandra Silva, is from, later in the year.
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He said, “For me, going to Madrid is going to be a great adventure because I have never lived full-time outside the United States. And I think it will be very interesting for my children as well. For Alejandra, it will be wonderful to be closer to her family, her lifelong friends, and her culture. She was very generous in giving me six years living in my world, so I think it is only fair that I give her at least another six living in hers.
In any case, I love Spain, and I think your lifestyle is fabulous. Also, your ability to live, transmitting joy and happiness. It is a beautiful place, the food is extraordinary, and the people exude sensitivity and generosity, as well as a strong will to laugh and enjoy. So I’m looking forward to going there.”
8. In 1995, Tina Turner moved to Switzerland with Erwin Bach, her then-boyfriend (and later husband).
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In 1997, she told CNN, “I have left America because my success was in another country, and my boyfriend was in another country.”
She also said she was “as big as Madonna” in Europe.
She said, “I went to England for a couple of years, and then I met a man, and I lived three years with him in his country, in Germany. Then I bought a house, in the meantime, in the south of France, and I started to rebuild that, so I’m in and out of there. That’s not a place I can go often. [Home is] Zurich. Because my boyfriend was moved there to run the company, and I always wanted to go to Switzerland, and I was very happy.”
In 2013, Tina married Erwin and became a Swiss citizen.
9. In 2021, George Clooney reportedly moved to Brignoles, Provence, France with his wife, Amal Clooney, and their children.
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He and his wife, Amal Clooney, reportedly want to have a “peaceful life” and raise their children primarily in France.
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10. In 2023, Christina Milian and her family moved to France, where her husband, Matt Pokora, is from.
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She told the Jennifer Hudson Show, “My husband is French, and we’ve been together for over seven or eight years, and for like the last three or four years, we were commuting back and forth every six months. And then we decided to commit to it last year because our kids were going to go to school.”
11. And finally, Josh Hartnett and his wife, Tamsin Egerton, lived between the US and the UK (her home country) for years but spent lockdown in the UK. Then, when they were expecting their third child, they decided to stay in Hampshire for good.
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In 2024, he told the Guardian that in NYC or LA, “people only want to talk about your career,” but he prefers how, in Hampshire, “nobody cares.”
He also said that, because he’d on a marriage visa, he’s only allowed to leave the UK for work for 180 days out of the year, giving him time to make about one movie. He’s fine with that and enjoys getting to spend more time with his kids while they’re growing up.
If you were going to move to a different country, which one would you choose? Let us know in the comments!
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