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15 Hollywood Stars Who Have Left the U.S. — Citing Trump, the Need for ‘Serenity’ and More
From Rosie O’Donnell’s recent move to Ireland with her child Clay to Richard Gere’s new life in Spain, these stars have planted roots outside of the U.S.
By
Alexandra Schonfeld is a features writer at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since April 2022. Her work previously appeared in Newsweek.
Updated on March 20, 2025 03:09PM EDT
Rosie O’Donnell, Ellen DeGeneres and Richard Gere.Credit :
Amanda Edwards/Getty; Stefanie Keenan/Getty; Pablo Cuadra/Getty
While many think of New York City or Los Angeles when it comes to where the biggest names in Hollywood rest their heads, these stars looked for for a place away from the bright lights — even oceans away, in some cases.
Whether it’s Rosie O’Donnell‘s recent decision to move with her child to Ireland in the wake of the 2024 election or Richard Gere‘s move with his family to Spain to be closer to his wife’s loved ones, see which stars have decided to live abroad.
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Rosie O’Donnell
Rosie O’Donnell.
Stefanie Keenan/Getty
Rosie O’Donnell confirmed she had moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old child Clay in a TikTok video shared in March 2025.
She said she’s working on getting her Irish citizenship and suggested that her move was motivated by America’s current political landscape.
“I was never someone who thought I would move to another country, that’s what I decided would be the best for myself and my 12-year-old child. And here we are,” she said, explaining that they’ve been in Ireland since January.
“You know, I’m happy. Clay is happy,” she added. “I miss my other kids. I miss my friends. I miss many things about life there at home and I’m trying to find a home here in this beautiful country and when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America, that’s when we will consider coming back.”
“It’s been heartbreaking to see what’s happening politically and hard for me personally as well,” she continued. “The personal is political, as we all know.”
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Courtney Love
Courtney Love.
Julien Hekimian/Getty Images
Though Courtney Love has lived in London since 2019, she recently shared that she’s taking her move one step further and getting her British citizenship.
According to the Daily Mail, Love said in an interview with Todd Almond at London’s Geographical Society in early March that she expects the citizenship to come in six months.
She didn’t specifically link her move to Trump’s presidency, she has been outspoken in the past about her dislike of the President and described the current political situation in the U.S. as “frightening.”
“In terms of Trump, and particularly this group… it’s like emperor-core. Like, wearing million-dollar watches. Emperor-core is going on at Mar-a-Lago,” she said, per the Mail.
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Ellen and Portia
Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi.
Kelly Sullivan/Getty
In late 2024, PEOPLE learned that Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi had moved to the English countryside after finding a house the former talkshow host “loved.” The pair now live in a farmhouse in the Cotswolds region.
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Eva Longoria
Eva Longoria.
Taylor Hill/FilmMagic
While speaking with Marie Claire in November 2024, Eva Longoria shared that she and her family had been splitting time between Spain and Mexico for the last few years. She clarified, though, that the move was not a product of her opinion on President Trump.
“I’m a proud American. I’ve always been a proud American. Proud Texan, proud American,” Longoria told Ana Navarro during an episode of The View’s Behind the Table podcast. “I didn’t want it to be taken that I left because of Trump — absolutely not — or because of the elections.”
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Richard Gere
Richard Gere.
Daniele Venturelli/WireImage
Six months after sharing that he wanted to relocate to Spain with his wife, Alejandra Silva, and their two young sons, Richard Gere sold his $11 million New Canaan, Conn., home in October 2024.
“For Alejandra, it will be wonderful to be closer to her family, her lifelong friends and her culture,” Gere told Vanity Fair Spain of his wife, who was born in Spain. “She was very generous in giving me six years living in my world, so it is only fair that I give her at least another six living in hers.”
Despite the big move and sale of his Connecticut home, Gere told the outlet he still has a house “in the countryside near New York.”
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Amber Heard
Amber Heard.
Vianney Le Caer/Deadline via Getty
In 2023, a source told PEOPLE about the reasoning behind Amber Heard‘s move abroad the previous year with her young daughter Oonagh Paige.
Following her defamation trial with ex-husband Johnny Depp, Heard felt like she had to “just had to get out of the U.S.” in the wake of receiving death threats and becoming the subject of vicious Internet memes.
While she first moved to the Spanish island of Mallorca, she later settled in an upscale neighborhood of Madrid where, the source explains, “she gets more privacy.”
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Lily Collins
Lily Collins.
VALERIE MACON/Getty
Lily Collins and her husband Charlie McDowell moved to Copenhagen, Denmark in 2023, Vogue reported.
That year, she was asked by Elle Danmark the best part about life in Copenhagen. The answer? “Everything!”
“Life here is just so wonderful and so calm and bright. What I love so much is that there’s so much color and, yet, it’s so calm. I love being able to bike everywhere. It feels like a big city but also very intimate, and everyone is so nice.”
Per Architectural Digest, she and her husband still have property on the West Coast.
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Josh Lucas
Josh Lucas.
Kevin Winter/GA/The Hollywood Reporter via Getty
In 2019, Josh Lucas opened up about living in Indonesia where his son, then 7, was enrolled in an environmentally focused school. The Sweet Home Alabama actor described it as “such a special place.”
“I have this very special 7-year-old child, and I think all of us are trying to figure out how to have an impact in the world, and for myself, the best thing I could do is give my son this extraordinary experience,” he explained on Jimmy Kimmel Live! “Being on the other side of the world and looking back at this madness is amazing.”
Of his son’s school, he added, “He loves it. It’s magical. It’s deeply in the jungle. It’s like Swiss Family Robinson — they grow their own food, they make their own buildings out of bamboo.”
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Pamela Anderson
Pamela Anderson.
Joshua Sammer/Getty
Pamela Anderson decided to move back to Vancouver Island, British Columbia — where she was born and raised — around the start of the pandemic in 2020. As she told Better Homes & Gardens in August 2024, the decision was in part due to her feelings about how she felt the public perceived her.
“A few years back, I kind of gave up at some point and needed a change,” Anderson said. “I thought, ‘Well, I guess that’s just what people think of me.’ I was not in a good space when I moved back to Canada.”
“I don’t know what happened over the last few decades, but I feel now so far removed from the image of who I was,” she continued. “I felt very sad and lonely. I didn’t feel just misunderstood, I felt like I had really screwed up, that my whole life was a bundle of mistakes. I was hard on myself, and I thought I put my family through a lot and put my kids through so much.”
Her move to Canada was not her first move abroad as an adult; she previously lived in Marseille, France.
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Lindsay Lohan
Lindsay Lohan.
Arnold Jerocki/Getty
In 2017, Lindsay Lohan opened up about living in Dubai after she began residing in the city in 2014, telling Entertainment Tonight, “I love living in New York, but I do love the serenity and peace that I find living in the Middle East because there are no cameras in Dubai and I can actually focus on what I want to do in life.”
Later, Lohan welcomed her first son, Luai, in Dubai, where she is raising him with husband Bader Shammas.
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Tina Turner
Tina Turner in 1981.
Gary Gershoff/Getty
Tina Turner moved to Kusnacht, Switzerland in 1998 with her partner Erwin Bach. While she initially rented the home, known as Villa Algonquin, due to Swiss restrictions, after becoming a citizen in 2013, she bought the estate for a reported $76 million, according to the Associated Press.
The home on the shore of Lake Zurich is where the iconic singer died at age 83 in 2023.
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Shania Twain
Shania Twain.
Terry Wyatt/Getty
Also making a home in Switzerland is Shania Twain whose main residence is near Lake Geneva, Homes & Gardens reported in 2023.
After living in the country for 10 years, the singer had one of Switzerland’s Golden Pass Express trains named in her honor: the “Shania Train,” CNN reported.
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Christina Milian
Christina Milian.
Jon Kopaloff/Getty
Christina Milian shared on an episode of The Jennifer Hudson Show that after years of splitting time between France and the U.S., she and her husband Matt Pokora, who is French, “decided to commit” to living overseas as their kids were now of school age.
“I love it out there!” she said. “So our children, they’re 3, 4, and of course Violet is 14, they’re all going to school in Paris. What better an opportunity than that?”
Milian shares sons Isaiah, 5, and Kenna, 3 with Pokora and daughter Violet, 15, with ex The-Dream.
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Melissa George
Melissa George.
Pascal Le Segretain/Getty
In 2016, Melissa George moved to Paris from New York City with her two sons, The New York Times Magazine reported. Since 2020, she has had a home in Provence which she recently showed off for the outlet. The 17th century home is five stories tall and filled with intricate furniture and custom touches she’s added along the way.
