By Megan Riedlinger
7:28pm PDT, Mar 27, 2024
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Who would want to flee LA.? Apparently, the answer to that question is… a whole lot of stars. Whether they got out of Tinseltown for political reasons or just wanted to raise their family outside of Hollywood, we've rounded up some of the stars who've left Los Angeles…
Back in 2020, former child star Christy Carlson Romano and her family fled Los Angeles for Austin, Texas, and they've never looked back. While speaking to People magazine, the actress said she "loves" that her two young daughters are no longer in Hollywood. "I love California, we have our PodCo offices there. And I also truly feel at home in Austin. I have a really strong community of friends there, and I've really found a way to set down roots," the "Even Stevens" star said. Austin, Christy says, has a "slower pace" than L.A., but the Texas city "still has all the things" her daughters need. "I'm really happy that we live there," she added.
Keep reading for more stars who got out of L.A….
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During the pandemic in 2020, Hilary Swank decided to uproot her life and head to Colorado, where she purchased a lot of land in 2016. The Academy Award winner put her Los Angeles home on the market for $10.5 million and made the move to the southwest Colorado mountains, citing California's lockdowns and a desire to settle where her many rescue animals — five dogs, a horse and two parrots — could have more room to roam. She luckily had plenty of extra space to grow her family once she and husband Philip Schneider welcomed twins in 2023.
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In February 2023, Mark Wahlberg sold his mega-mansion in Beverly Hills for a whopping $55 million. The reason? He wanted to give the four children he shares with wife Rhea Durham a "better life," he said. They then settled in Summerlin, Nevada, just outside of Las Vegas. "We came here to just kind of give ourselves a new look, a fresh start for the kids, and there's a lot of opportunity here. I'm really excited about the future," Mark — who's wanted to open a large movie studio in Nevada — explained on an episode of "The Talk."
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Matthew McConaughey relocated his family from Los Angeles to Texas back in 2012. He and wife Camila Alves felt strongly about raising their three children away from L.A., with Camila in particular appreciating a slower lifestyle more reminiscent of her own upbringing. "For me, being from Brazil and then coming to Texas, I discovered a lot of similarities in terms of what families practice here, especially going to church on Sundays and being very into the outdoors. It's been a great transition," Camila told Fox News in 2022.
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Famed tattoo artist and makeup mogul Kat Von D announced her departure from Los Angeles — the city that helped make her famous thanks to her TLC show "LA Ink" — in 2021. The star took to Instagram that October to reveal her permanent move to Indiana, sharing, "As some of you know, we recently purchased a beautiful home on a bit of land in rural Indiana, and the more time we spend out there we realize we feel more at home there than we do here in LA." The caption went on to note this move meant she'd be closing her tattoo shop, High Voltage.
She later opened up about the move on the "Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey" podcast, citing California's pandemic-driven lockdowns, protests and riots that took place and her home's proximity to L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti's home, explaining, "I lived three doors down from the mayor of L.A., so we had Antifa on our front yard after they threatened to do Molotov cocktails. We were seeing things in real time and they were much worse in real life than I think what people put on TV." She settled in Vevay, Indiana, where she told Indianapolis Monthly, "I'm one of those Californians fleeing the state looking for the opposite of what is there. I'm not interested in changing Vevay, but I'd like to bring things to the table… I do plan on opening up a private tattoo studio … eventually. … Everywhere I go, I want to leave it a little better than I found it."
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Sick of the "toxic" culture in Los Angeles, Rod Stewart listed his home in the city in 2023 for $70 million, according to DailyMail.com. The singer moved his family's home base to his native England, where his youngest children were attending school and where his family was more comfortable. Wife Penny Lancaster also enjoys her work as a volunteer police officer in London. "Penny loves the life she has made away from America and away from L.A.," a source told the outlet.
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Tech billionaire Elon Musk took to Twitter — which he renamed X in 2023 following his 2022 purchase of the social media site — in 2020 to sound off about pandemic-driven shutdowns in California and his plans to leave the state. He then put his money where his mouth was — listing all seven of his California homes for sale for a grand total of $137 million. He relocated to Texas at the end of the year after two decades of living in the Golden state. He then moved the headquarters of one of his companies, Tesla, from Palo Alto, California, to Austin, Texas, in 2021.
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In 2020, Amanda Seyfried and her family moved out of Los Angeles and headed to the Catskills in upstate New York. The actress had purchased a farm there back in 2014, then permanently settled there during the pandemic. A source told Us Weekly that the move made sense for the star, revealing, "The vibe [in Hudson County] just suits them all as a family, they love being around nature and away from the hustle of city life… She and [husband] Thomas [Sadoski are] huge fans of the outdoors and they've been taking the kids out locally, plus exploring more of the East Coast."
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It was important to John Goodman to get out of Los Angeles back in 2014 to ensure his daughter wasn't raised in Hollywood. He resettled his family in New Orleans. "I'd kind of had it with show business and I wanted to get away from Los Angeles. The options were St. Louis or New Orleans," he told Garden and Gun.
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Comedian Rob Schneider announced his move to Arizona in 2020, tweeting, "California, land of my birth and where all my children were born, I've spent all of my life in your beauty. … So it is with much sadness that we have to part. But it is time to leave #CaliforniaYouBrokeMyHeart." He later opened up about the move on "Fox and Friends" in 2022, explaining that it was political, sharing, "I really feel like I don't want the Democratic Party trying to run my life. And there's not one aspect of your life that they don't want to interfere with. I had it with them, so I got out of California and moved to the slightly freer state of Arizona."
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Danica McKellar fled Los Angeles in 2022, opting for a slower-paced lifestyle in Tennessee that she actually credits to some of the characters she's played in holiday films over the years. "My husband and I have been wanting more nature for a long time. We were kind of ready to not be in a city anymore," she told People magazine, adding, "I am just loving the fact that my Christmas movie characters have rubbed off on me. I think it's just a wonderful example of life imitating art."
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James Van Der Beek and wife Kimberly moved their brood — which now includes six children — from Los Angeles to Austin, Texas, in 2020. He told Austin Life in 2021, "We wanted to get the kids out of Los Angeles. We wanted to give them space and we wanted them to live in nature."
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Dean Cain sold his Malibu home for $6.25 million in 2023, citing the quality of life in California as his reason for leaving the state. "I love California. It's the most beautiful state. Everything's wonderful about it except for the policies. The policies are just terrible. The fiscal policies, the soft-on-crime policies, the homelessness policies," the actor told Fox News. He resettled in Las Vegas and has been really happy with his decision, telling the outlet, "My son is 10 times happier here in Las Vegas. If I wanted to do anything out of Malibu, it took me 45 minutes to an hour to get anywhere. Here, the longest I'm driving is 20 minutes."
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Like many stars, pandemic-driven lockdown conditions in California inspired Josh Brolin to relocate from Los Angeles in 2020. He and wife Kathryn Boyd sold their $6.55 Brentwood mansion and instead purchase two homes elsewhere — one in Simi Valley, California, and the other in Atlanta, where Kathryn was born and raised.
