George Clooney and his family just became French citizens, according to official government documents. He’s talked before about wanting to raise his kids somewhere quieter than Hollywood, and now it looks like he’s made it official.
George Clooney Becomes French Citizen
A list published Saturday shows Clooney, his wife Amal, and their twins, Alexander and Ella, among France’s newest citizens. Clooney still has his American passport, and Amal’s a British-Lebanese lawyer, but France isn’t exactly foreign territory for them. Sure, they have homes in England and Kentucky, but Clooney told the New York Times their main place is a farm in France.
Lately, more and more celebrities have started questioning life in the U.S., and some have packed up and left. Politics have a lot to do with it. Rosie O’Donnell, for example, moved to Ireland with her child at the start of 2025. She’s been clear that recent political shifts in the U.S. made her feel unsafe, so she chose Europe and is now working on getting Irish citizenship.
Hollywood’s Quiet Exit from the US
Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi made a similar move, settling in the Cotswolds in England. DeGeneres has said worries about civil rights and politics back home played a big part in their decision.
Jimmy Kimmel went for Italian citizenship, calling it a kind of political “escape plan” because he’s frustrated with how things are going in the U.S. His move set off a whole debate online about celebrity privilege and political protest.
Some, like Joe Pantoliano, famous for The Sopranos and The Matrix—are still thinking about it. He’s talked about possibly moving to Portugal with his wife, again because of the political climate and just a general sense of anxiety.
Others, like Eva Longoria and Sophie Turner, have announced moves to Spain and the U.K., mixing politics, family, and lifestyle reasons.
Not every celebrity is fleeing only because of politics. Sometimes it’s about privacy or wanting a different life. But there’s no denying that more of them are weighing whether America still feels like home, especially with the way things are changing.
Trump’s second administration row
The second Trump administration isn’t hiding its agenda. They’re pushing hard to reshape the government and the country, and part of that is telling a lot of people women, minorities, basically anyone who isn’t a white man—that they’re not “real” Americans. They get labeled as “DEI” people, and the message is clear: fall in line or get pushed out. It’s not hard to feel for someone like O’Donnell—if you have a kid who doesn’t fit into the most traditional boxes, you’re probably scared stiff about what could happen to their rights. Hollywood’s leaders seem ready to cave to Trump’s camp too, dropping diversity programs and, in tech, even cozying up to the administration. So you can see why some folks are just deciding to leave that world behind.
