George Clooney recently said, “I was worried about raising our kids in LA, in the culture of Hollywood. I felt like they were never going to get a fair shake at life.”
Some celebrities, like Kim Kardashian and Beyoncé, let their children join them in the spotlight. Others, however, decide to raise their families as far from the limelight as possible.
Here are 17 celebrities who decided to raise their kids away from Hollywood:
1. George Clooney and Amal Clooney have 8-year-old twins, Alexander and Ella. They live on a farm with 1,200 olive trees and 100 acres of grapes in France.
In 2025, George told Esquire, “We’re very lucky. You know, we live on a farm in France. A good portion of my life growing up was on a farm, and as a kid, I hated the whole idea of it. But now, for them, it’s like — they’re not on their iPads, you know? They have dinner with grown-ups and have to take their dishes in. They have a much better life.”
“I was worried about raising our kids in LA, in the culture of Hollywood. I felt like they were never going to get a fair shake at life. France — they kind of don’t give a shit about fame. I don’t want them to be walking around worried about paparazzi. I don’t want them being compared to somebody else’s famous kids,” he said.
2. Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds have four kids — James, Inez, Betty, and Olin. They decided to raise them in Pound Ridge, New York, about an hour and 40 minutes outside the Big Apple.
In 2015, Ryan told The Project, “I think it’s always a fine line… I think it’s keeping a boundary that there’s this world that is the job and the world that is the home… We don’t live in LA. We live on a farm in New York. And we don’t lead a wild and crazy life. It’s not that hard. It’s not a big deal.”
3. Rosie O’Donnell has five kids. She shares sons Parker and Blake and daughters Chelsea and Vivienne with her first ex-wife, Kelli Carpenter. Rosie shares her youngest child, Clay, with her second ex-wife, Michelle Rounds. Rosie decided to raise 12-year-old Clay, the only child still at home, in Ireland.
In a 2025 TikTok video, she said, “I’m here in Ireland, and it’s beautiful and warm — not physically, it’s actually quite cold. Moved here on January 15th, and it’s been pretty wonderful, I have to say. The people are so loving and so kind, so welcoming, and I’m very grateful. I’m in the process of getting my Irish citizenship, as I have Irish grandparents, and that’s what’s going on… 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…”
“You know, I’m happy. Clay is happy. 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, you know, 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. The personal is political, as we all know,” she said.
4. Matthew McConaughey and Camila Alves McConaughey have two sons, Levi and Livingston, and a daughter, Vida. They’ve lived in Austin, Texas, since 2014.
In 2025, Matthew told The Megyn Kelly Show, “I call it — and this is not a political term — but I call it, ‘conservative early, liberal late.’ I want my kids to know how to block and tackle, know your manners and graces and arithmetic and respect, before we’re gonna go fly our freak flag and say whatever. So, I think art emulates life. I want them to learn who they are and who they are not in life before they’re going off into imaginations. Now, you can create whoever it is you wanna be, but let’s have a foundation that we understand about how we act and how we treat ourselves and each other before we go off into La La Land of dreams and creation.”
5. James Van Der Beek, Kimberly Van Der Beek, and their five (now six) kids — Olivia, Joshua, Annabel, Emilia, Gwendolyn, and Jeremiah — moved to Texas in 2020 after a personally difficult year for all of them.
In a 2020 Instagram post, he shared, “In the last ten months, we’ve had two late-term pregnancy losses, each of which put [Kimberly] in the hospital, we spent Christmas break thinking she had a tumor (the doctor was wrong, thank god), I was prematurely booted off a reality dancing show I was favored to win in front of the whole world, and my mom died. And a shut-down. All of that led to some drastic changes in our lives, and dreams, and priorities… and landed us here. Overflowing with profound gratitude today.”
Three years later, he told Good Morning America that he’d spent the past few years working on the ranch, making food with what they’ve grown in their garden, and trying “some attempts at carpentry.” He said, “Living in Texas, I’ve been offered basically everything that I thought I really wanted before, and I just haven’t had it in me to say yes, to leave where we’re at. But I think it’s time. My big thing is that my kids come with me, so we’ll all go wherever we’re going and figure it out. This break has been really, really good for me. I think I’ve probably figured out a lot more of who I am and what’s important in these last couple of years.”
6. Sophie Turner has two daughters, Willa and Delphine, with her ex-husband, Joe Jonas. Their shared custody agreement means the girls split their time between the US and the UK.
During the marriage, Sophie lived in LA and Miami, but she was homesick for the UK. After their divorce, she returned to London. In 2024, she told Harper’s Bazaar UK, “The gun violence, Roe v. Wade being overturned… Everything just kind of piled on. After the Uvalde [school] shooting, I knew it was time to get the fuck out of there. I’m so happy to be back. I never feel like myself when I’m not in London.”
7. Chris Hemsworth and Elsa Pataky have a daughter, India, and twin boys, Sasha and Tristan. The family resides in Byron Bay, Australia.
In 2025, Elsa told RealEstate.com.au, “When you’re in Los Angeles, work suffocates you. There, all the conversations, even the billboards you see on the street, have to do with the world of cinema and its industry. It can make you lose perspective.”
Similarly, in 2020, Chris told the Sunday Telegraph, “There’s not a single person that I interact with, or close friends of mine, that are really in the industry, and so that’s hugely refreshing. It’s great for my kids and my wife.”
8. Janet Jackson and her son Eissa — whom she shares with her billionaire ex-husband, Wissam Al Mana — live in London.
She’s lived in the UK capital since about 2016. She stayed in the city after her divorce in 2017. In 2024, she told the Guardian, “My son’s childhood is completely different from mine. I worked, and he doesn’t… The most important thing I’ve done, the biggest thing I’ve done, is become a mother, and it’s had a beautiful impact on my life. I wanted to have three children but thought, ‘I should stop there; that’s probably all I can handle.’ Because you have to give all of yourself, you have to spread the love, and I wouldn’t want any of them to feel left out if I had three. Obviously, you have to work, but you don’t come first anymore. Your life completely changes. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
9. Mark Ruffalo and Sunrise Coigney have a son named Keen and two daughters named Bella and Odette. They raised their family in Sullivan County, New York.
They moved to their 50-acre property upstate around 2011. Mark told Nowness, “It’s the best thing I could have done for the family as a whole and for the kids in particular. We made a pact to let them be and let them work out their differences on their own. We’re letting them grow a little wild, and we step in when it’s essential, but in a lot of ways, they figure stuff out on their own, and they do it in a way that’s organic and lasts. We live in a small space, and we’re really influenced by the natural world around us. Eventually, that is reflected in one’s behavior and how you get along with other people. There’s a lot of quiet in the country, and there’s a lot of quietness in my children.”
10. Hilarie Burton Morgan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan have a son named Gus and a daughter named George. They live on Mischief Farm in Rhinebeck, New York.
Hilarie and Jeffrey initially lived between LA and NYC. However, they both always wanted to live on a farm — a shared dream they discussed on their second date. So, after welcoming Gus, they relocated. Their family has expanded to include animals like alpacas, Highland cows, ducks, chickens, donkeys, and an emu.
Hilarie wrote a memoir, The Rural Diaries, about her life on Mischief Farm. They also ended up co-owning the local candy store, Samuel’s Sweet Shop, with Paul Rudd and Julie Yaeger.
11. Jeff Daniels and Kathleen Treado have three kids — Ben, Lucas, and Nellie. They raised them in Chelsea, Michigan, which is the same town where the couple grew up.
They decided to move back home in 1986 “to create as much a sense of normalcy as possible.” In 2019, Jeff told People, “It was a very dramatic move in 1986 to move to Michigan, but that was to keep the family number one. And that worked… Kathleen’s permanent. The family’s permanent. Careers are job to job, you’re hot, you’re not.”
12. Christina Milian has three kids. She shares daughter Violet with her ex-husband, The-Dream, and she shares sons Isaiah and Kenna with her current husband, M. Pokora. Christina and M. live with all three children in Paris.
They moved to France, where he’s from, in 2023. A year later, she told The Jennifer Hudson Show, “My husband’s 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 gonna to go to school… I love it out there! 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?”
13. Chad Michael Murray and Sarah Roemer have a son and two daughters, whose names they keep private. The family lives in Buffalo, New York.
Chad left his hometown in 1999, but his family bought a house and moved back over the holidays in 2024. He told Interview magazine, “I’m excited. I go full Clark Griswold, and so I’ve got some plans ready for the kids. I typically take decorating all into my own hands. 99% of it is going to be me, but this year I did have to call someone to put lights on the house because I’m not there to do it. But as soon as I hit the ground, I’ll be up and running. We go big… Do you want to know the best part? It was my wife’s idea.”
14. James Denton and Erin O’Brien have a son named Sheppard and a daughter named Malin, whom they raised in Minnesota.
In 2012, Desperate Housewives ended, and the family left LA for the Land of 10,000 Lakes. One deciding factor was nearness to Erin’s family. A decade later, James told Yahoo Lifestyle, “I knew the value of growing up in a smaller town… And with social media…they’ve got enough to deal with without being [there]. LA is tough. I think kids judge each other a little more harshly, and everybody’s parents seem to be in the business in some aspect, and it’s just much easier in a small town for them.”
15. Gabriel Macht and Jacinda Barrett have two children, Luca and Satine, whom they decided to raise outside the US.
In 2025, Gabriel revealed that his family had left the US sometime after Suits ended a few years prior. He told People, “I don’t tell anybody where I live because I like to keep that under wraps. I got out of town, and we’re exploring the world.”
He later told E! News, “I want to see how the world looks in different people’s eyes. I want to see different perspectives. I want to learn from others. I want to see history and culture and character in different places in the world. I feel like, why not? If you have the opportunity, it’s a great way to raise kids.”
16. Josh Hartnett and Tamsin Egerton have four children, and they’ve kept their names private. They live in Hampshire, UK.
After living between the US and the UK, the family spent lockdown in Tamsin’s home country. When the couple was expecting their third child, they opted to permanently call Hampshire home. In 2024, Josh told the Guardian that, in LA and NYC, “people only want to talk about your career,” but in their village, “nobody cares.” Because he’s in the UK on a marriage visa, he’s only allowed to leave for work for 180 days each year. Basically, he can only shoot one movie a year, which is perfectly alright for him because he gets to spend more time with his children.
He said, “This is all brand new to me. 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. My oldest daughter is eight and a half now – that feels like it happened in the last two years to me. So I’m trying to soak up as much as possible.”
He also said he enjoys the “anonymity” and “slower pace” in his new locale, adding, “I love being able to take nice walks. It helps to wear a hat.”
17. And finally, in 2025, actor Shaun Majumder left LA and moved back to Canada with his family. Rather than return home to Newfoundland, they settled in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He told CBC, “Have you been watching the news? Have you seen what’s going on? I ran out of a burning building with my youngsters under my arm and my wife on my back. I’m like, get me out of here, this is crazy! You know, we’ve been kind of, like, mulling over a big change over the last six to eight months, to be honest. Having two young kids, living in Los Angeles, is a really different experience than moving down there as a super enthusiastic whippersnapper actor. But, you know, during COVID, we had two children, and that changed our lives forever. We actually went back to Newfoundland; it’s kind of where we hunkered down. It just feels like the perfect storm.”
He also said, “We also knew that the tides were turning on the political landscape in America. We knew an election was coming up, and I said to my wife, ‘Shelby, if Trump wins, I don’t know. I have a feeling that that’s going to be the kicker to get me to go. I think I need to go.’ We went through the election. We went to our family’s place in Florida for Christmas. We came back to LA. The city was on fire. Trump was now president, whether you like him or not. The country was kind of becoming more chaotic. And we were just like, oh, yeah, if the universe wasn’t screaming at us right now to get out of here, then this is definitely a kicker. And I do most of my work in Canada, so it just makes sense for us to be up here.”