10 Celebrities Who’ve Moved Back To Their Hometowns

Read on to find out why these stars moved home…

Glen Powell may be making big moves in his Hollywood career, but he decided to move back to his hometown of Austin, Texas after receiving some advice from Matthew McConaughey. Looking back on his move, Glen says Matthew told him how important it was to be close to family and true friends. He bought a home just 30 minutes from his mom and dad.

“He’s like, ‘Hollywood is the Matrix, man. You plug in, and it’s all fake world.’ He’s like, ‘Then I go to Austin, and I unplug. It’s all real. Those are my friends, that’s my family, my actions matter there.’ And he’s right,” Glen told The Hollywood Reporter.

He continued, “If you’re [in Hollywood], you live in the Matrix all the time, there’s no separation of those worlds. And for me, especially as my parents get older and my niece and nephew are growing up, I want a separation of those worlds.”

Matthew McConaughey and his wife Camila Alves have lived in Austin, Texas since 2014, which influenced the advice that the actor gave to Glen. Before moving, the couple had been living in Malibu but after spending an extended period of time in Texas because of a family crisis, Matthew realized he wanted to return home permanently.

“We have resources here. We have a background of security here,” he said on the Good Trouble podcast. “I did want to come back when Camila and I started a family. I wanted them to have what I grew up around.”

Aaron Paul grew up in Idaho and while he admits he “took it for granted” while he was living there, he now fully appreciates his hometown. He and his family now have a home in Boise as well as a lakehouse in McCall, which they spent almost three years building.

“The whole time I’m living this dream life in the wilderness and I’m thinking, ‘God, I just can’t wait to get out of here.’ I had something I was chasing, but the more time I spend away from there, the more I miss it,” he told Men’s Journal. “Now that we have a place there in Idaho, we spend more time in Idaho than we do in L.A., when I’m not working at least.”

After wrapping filming on Avengers: Endgame, Chris Evans decided to permanently leave Los Angeles and return home to Massachusetts. He says going back to where he spent his childhood allows him to live life at a slower pace and there, he’s much more free of anxiety.

“[Being home] takes me back to a place when life was not just simpler — that’s too reductive — but to a time where I was more pure, I guess; where my ego and my insecurities weren’t such a dominant force that I had to push against,” he shared with GQ.

Jack Harlow grew up in Kentucky and after moving away for a period of time, he decided to return home. He says making the move allowed him to renew his creativity while writing one of his albums and ended up being the happiest year of his life.

“Thank u for allowing me to reset this year. I moved back to Kentucky and gave u an album I could not have made on the road. Surrounded by family & childhood friends this has been one of the happiest years of my life,” Jack wrote on Instagram.

Michael Sheen considered moving home to Wales for years before actually making the leap. He says that after starring in a local production in Port Talbot, he realized many of the residents were struggling with job losses and the rising cost of living — and he wanted to return home to help. He made the move in 2018.

“Once you become aware of difficulties in the area you come from, you don’t have to do anything. You can live somewhere else, visit family at Christmas, and turn a blind eye to injustice. It doesn’t make you a bad person, but I’d seen something I couldn’t unsee. I had to apply myself, and I might not have the impact I’d like, but the one thing that I can say is that I’m doing stuff. I know I am — I’m paying for it!” Michael told the Sunday Times.

Chad Michael Murray left his hometown of Buffalo, New York when he was still a teenager, but he recently made the decision to return with his family. Chad, his wife Sarah Roemer, and their three children officially made the move in 2024. At the time, he admitted he couldn’t have been more thrilled about it — and was excited to begin some holiday traditions.

“I’m excited. I go full Clark Griswold, and so I’ve got some plans ready for the kids,” he told Interview magazine. “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.”

After Modern Family wrapped, Eric Stonestreet moved back to his hometown of Kansas City, Kansas where he owns a 78-acre property. Reflecting on his decision to move, he says it truly puts Hollywood in perspective — highlighting “everything great” about the entertainment business as well as the “douchebaggery.”

“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,” Eric said on an episode of In Depth With Graham Bensinger.

He added of Los Angeles, “But then, you’re also offered fruit on a big board. ‘Would you like some lychee and kiwi, sir?’ It’s like, ‘Oh yeah, this is what’s great about Hollywood.’ It’s like, nobody’s offered me a fruit board over at Jolly Ridge…So, it’s really fun. It just amplifies it. It’s like, leaving [Kansas City] and going back and doing something is almost more fun than it was living there, doing it.”

When the pandemic started, Pamela Anderson made the decision to move back to her small hometown of Vancouver Island, British Columbia in Canada. Reflecting on the decision, she says she was in a bad headspace at the time and wanted to take an opportunity to reconnect with herself and her roots. She even purchased a property that was once owned by her grandmother and then renovated it.

“I guess [it was] a homecoming, you could say to really kind of look at my life and remember who I was — not what other people were telling me I was. I didn’t want anything that had happened to me define me. I wanted what I do to define me,” Pamela told Women’s Wear Daily.

Ian Harding grew up near Washington D.C., and in 2021, he and his wife, Sophie Hart, moved back. He explained that he always knew he wanted to return to the East Coast, and the decision finally seemed feasible when studios began accepting self-recorded audition tapes during the pandemic. He’s now “so grateful” that he made the move.

“It’s been amazing that my mom can just come over, and my dad and my stepmom can come by. And because I’m not in government or politics, I get to enjoy D.C. as opposed to seeing it for the giant stress machine that it is…But I really love it, and I’m so grateful that I moved back. The feeling has been amazing,” he told People.