19 celebrities who have left Los Angeles on where they moved and why they did it
More than 817,000 people moved out of California from 2021 to 2022, per most recent census data.
It's not just regular people: Celebrities leave Los Angeles for places including Texas and Florida.
Here are 18 celebrities who left LA — plus where they chose to move to and why.
California is the US state with the most people moving out, with about 817,000 leavers between 2021 and 2022, according to the most recent census data.
And while regular people ditch the Golden State, several celebrities, who can typically afford to live wherever they want, have also decided California is no longer the place for them.
Singer-turned-talk show host Kelly Clarkson traded Los Angeles for New York City post-divorce for in 2022, while actor Sylvester Stallone said earlier this year that he and his family are "permanently" vacating California for South Florida.
Popular moving destinations for Californians include Arizona, Florida, and Texas.
People have told Business Insider recently that reasons for leaving LA and California include high taxes, expensive home prices, and challenging social and political conditions. Some celebrities remain tight-lipped when sharing moves of their news, simply saying they're looking for a fresh start. Other high-profile actors, however, admit that the fast-paced, stressful scene in Hollywood can be another motivation.
Los Angeles, in particular, is experiencing an exodus of wealthier people in search of places where their money goes further.
Take Gus Lira, a managing partner at a private jet charter company, who had a condo in Malibu overlooking the ocean. California taxes were wearing him down, so he decided to move to Nevada.
"For me, really the main reason, and for many of the people that I know, is just taxes," Lira told Business Insider in January. "You can't get ahead when you get $100 and they take $60."
Business Insider compiled a list of 18 celebrities — some in celebrity couples — who left California for greener pastures, presented in alphabetical order by last name. We tried to include both where they moved to and why they left LA.
Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake left LA to shield their kids from the glare of the paparazzi.
The power couple has dealt with the paparazzi for most of their professional careers. But they had enough of their kids also having to endure it.
Since 2018, Biel, Timberlake, and their two kids have lived predominantly at their properties in Tennessee and Montana.
"You get hammered on the East Coast. You kind of get hammered on the West Coast. That's why we don't really live there anymore," said Biel in a May 22 episode of SiriusXM's "Let's Talk Off Camera With Kelly Ripa," seemingly referring to her former home of LA. "We're just trying to create some normalcy for these kids."
Dean Cain left LA for Las Vegas because of the "incredible taxation" and "horrible regulations for business" in California.
Dean Cain, best known for playing Clark Kent/Superman in "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman," was fed up with how things were run in California.
The actor split for Vegas last year.
"It's the most ridiculous large government, incredible taxation, horrible regulations for business," he told Fox News Digital in 2023. "Very anti-business."
Cain said California's personal income tax felt especially high.
"I moved to Las Vegas. I live in Nevada now," he added. "I have 10 times as nice a house. I'm not kidding. Ten times as nice a house as I had in Malibu. The house is absolutely stunningly built. Gorgeous, beautiful. Everything is brand new."
Kelly Clarkson didn't just move from LA to New York — she took her daytime talk show with her.
Kelly Clarkson felt she had a new lease on life when she moved to New York City last year.
After finalizing her divorce from ex-husband Brandon Blackstock in 2022, she didn't just take her kids east. She also brought "The Kelly Clarkson Show" — it started taping in New York in season 5.
"I was very depressed for the last three years — and maybe a little before that, if I'm being honest. I think I really needed the change," the Grammy winner told People. "I needed it for me and my family as well. My kids are thriving here. We're just doing so much better, and we needed a fresh start."
John Goodman left LA in the late '80s.
John Goodman figured out a long time ago that Los Angeles wasn't for him and has been living in New Orleans since the late 1980s.
Like many, the Emmy winner first visited Crescent City to party. In the late 1970s, he showed up with his fraternity pals. A few years later, as an actor, he was shooting the movie "Everybody's All-American" alongside Dennis Quaid, Jessica Lange, and Timothy Hutton when he met his future wife, Anna Beth. He's been attached to the city ever since.
"I used to come down here every time I'd get a few dimes to rub together, and it felt like I was missing something unless I was here," he told "Today" in 2023. "I consider myself very lucky to be here."
Josh Harnett has been living in the English countryside since the pandemic. He left Hollywood after dealing with a stalker.
The actor recently gained renewed attention thanks to movies like "Oppenheimer" and "Trap," but don't expect to find him hanging out on the Sunset Strip. Since the pandemic, he's ditched LA for the English countryside.
Harnett and his wife, British actor Tamsin Egerton, have lived in Hampshire since COVID hit, bringing up their four kids. He's living in the UK on a marriage visa, so he can only leave the country for work 180 days a year.
After spending his early career in the Hollywood spotlight, Harnett told The Guardian he loves the village country life where "nobody cares" who you are.
"This is all brand new to me," he said. "I never would have expected it. And time passes quickly. With four children, you have so much to do. In a way, less is happening. But more of the important stuff is happening."
Being outside Hollywood is also safer for Hartnett. He told The Guardian that when he lived in LA, he had experiences with stalkers.
"People showed up at my house. People that were stalking me," he said. "A guy showed up at one of my premieres with a gun, claiming to be my father. He ended up in prison. There were lots of things. It was a weird time. And I wasn't going to be grist for the mill."
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban moved to Tennessee to be closer to the country music scene.
A year after Nicole Kidman tied the knot with country-music star Keith Urban, the two got the heck out of LA.
In 2007, they moved to Nashville, where the Australian Oscar winner dove headfirst into Urban's world.
"That country-music community is a very warm community," she told People in 2016. "It's very protective. Keith's been a part of it for decades now. It's his home, it's our home."
Matthew McConaughey headed to Texas to help his family.
A few years before the McConaissance led to Matthew McConaughey's best actor Oscar win, he and his wife Camila Alves fled Hollywood for his home state of Texas.
The two settled in Austin in 2012 after buying a 10,800-square-foot mansion. According to a profile in Southern Living, it was initially because of a "family crisis," as he needed to help his mother and two brothers. That led to the couple deciding to stay put to raise their three children there.
"Ritual came back," McConaughey said of being back in Texas. "Whether that was Sunday church, sports, dinner together as a family every night, or staying up after that telling stories in the kitchen, sitting at the island pouring drinks and nibbling while retelling them all in different ways than we told them before."
Amanda Seyfried headed to upstate New York for a taste of the simple life.
With movies like "Mean Girls" and "Mamma Mia!" in her filmography, you would think Amanda Seyfried would want to lay her head down somewhere glamorous.
But she actually prefers life on a farm.
Seyfried spends most of her time on a farm in the Catskills, a mountain range north of New York City, told Architectural Digest reported in 2023. in 2023 that that she purchased in 2014.
"It's insane how much I can feel so accomplished and successful here without having to be in a successful movie," she told The New York Times in 2020.
Sylvester Stallone wanted a new start in Florida.
After decades of living in Los Angeles — including in his first dingy apartme.nt on Balboa Boulevard, which would become the inspiration for his iconic character Rocky Balboa — Sylvester Stallone packed up and left town in 2023.
This was first revealed in early 2024, during season two of his reality series "The Family Stallone".
"After a long, hard consideration, your mother and I have decided, time to move on and leave the state of California permanently, and we're going to go to Florida," Stallone said. "We're going to sell this house."
Stallone and his wife, Jennifer Flavin, gave multiple reasons for the relocation, including the desire for a fresh start after their children moved out of the family home.
Rod Stewart went back to his roots in England.
The legendary rocker decided that at 79 years old, it was time to stop traveling across the pond.
Last year, he put his sprawling 38,500-square-foot Beverly Hills property, which he has lived in since 1975, on the market.
Selling the home is bittersweet for Stewart: "I don't want to sell it, and the kids don't want me to sell it either," Stewart told People. "There's too many fond memories. I've lived [in LA] since 1975, and I adore the place."
But he said he's making England a more permanent home since wrapping up his latest world tour and Las Vegas residency last year.
Hilary Swank moved to a Colorado ski town.
The Oscar winner is loving her new life in the mountains of Telluride, Colorado, on 168 acres with five rescue dogs.
She and her husband, Philip Schneider, bought the land in 2016, broke ground in 2018, and finally completed the home in 2020.
A year later, she put her LA home on the market and has been living it up in the great outdoors.
"I have been looking for land since I was in my mid-20s," Swank told Architectural Digest in 2022. "I find nature to be my happiest place, and animals are my other happiest place. And to be with both of them is everything to me."
Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively left LA after just six months of dating.
When you know, you know. After less than a year of dating, Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively packed up their stuff and left Hollywood for the suburbs of New York City.
In 2012, after six months of dating, the couple bought a $2.3 million home in Pound Ridge, New York.
"We don't live in LA. We live on a farm in New York," said the "Deadpool" star in a 2015 interview. "And we don't lead a wild and crazy life. It's not that hard. It's not a big deal."
Julia Roberts hasn't lived in LA for decades.
The Oscar winner realized many years ago that Los Angeles wasn't for her.
Roberts moved to a 32-acre ranch in Taos, New Mexico, in 1995.
The "Pretty Woman" star told Oprah back in 2003 that in New Mexico, everything is "clear."
"Around here, I come and go like it's nothing," she said. "Los Angeles is such a town of show business, and I'm a terrible celebrity. I find it difficult — it's the beast that must be fed."
Eric Stonestreet left Hollywood for Kansas City to get away from the "douchebaggery" of the business.
"Modern Family" star Eric Stonestreet did not mince words when he explained why he's been living in Kansas City since the acclaimed show ended after 11 seasons in 2020.
In a September interview with long-form interview journalist Graham Bensinger, he said a big reason he left LA was to get away from all the fake people in Hollywood.
"What I realized it does is it highlights everything great about our business, the entertainment business," the actor said on what it's like to no longer live in LA. "And it highlights all the douchebaggery of our business. It amplifies it. Because I'm here, I'm dealing with people from here, and I'm going into the store and having all these authentic, real moments, and then I go to Hollywood, and you're reminded of some of the types of people that you deal with."
James Van Der Beek moved his family out of LA after he and his wife renewed their vows in Austin.
In 2020, James Van Der Beek and his wife Kimberly renewed their wedding vows for their 10th anniversary in Austin, Texas.
A year later, they moved their six kids from LA to Austin, where they now live on a 36-acre property.
"We wanted to get the kids out of Los Angeles," Van Der Beek told Austin Lifestyle in 2021. "We wanted to give them space and we wanted them to live in nature."
Mark Wahlberg moved his family to Las Vegas for a "fresh start."
Boston-born Mark Wahlberg set out to LA years ago to make it as an actor. Over his career, he realized he rarely stayed there to make any of his movies. So, in 2022, he packed up and moved his family to Las Vegas.
He told The Talk in October 2022 that in Nevada his four kids can more easily pursue their hobbies, including golfing, riding horses, and playing basketball.
"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," Wahlberg told The Talk. "I'm really excited about the future."
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