Another Hollywood actress and former leading lady Katherine Heigl announced she was escaping from La La Land because it was too difficult raising her kids in the environment. She and her husband are relocating with their three kids to Park City, Utah, she announced during an interview with E! News.
“I hustled in Hollywood for 20 years and it was really important to me to find a place of solitude and solace,” the 44-year-old mother-of-three said. She said that she was married there in 2007 and now finds herself returning there permanently.
Speaking about the challenges of raising impressionable children in the Hollywood community, Heigl mentioned there were plenty of “things that scare [her]” and that leaving Los Angeles would allow her to be “more on top” of the kids, including what kind of friends they have and where they go.
“I didn’t know how to raise them in L.A., so I felt like I could do it here. I could be more on top of things that scare me and I could be more on top of the kinds of friends they have and places they’re going, the kind of activities they’re involved in — and what the hell they’re doing on their phones!” Heigl explained.
Heigl is the mother of Naleigh, 14, Adelaide, 10, and Joshua, 6. She and her husband are done having kids, she announced, humorously recounting that she thought she wanted one more but that the extended time together during pandemic lockdowns convinced her that three was enough. Parents around the world can relate.
“That’s a hard no. I thought for sure I wanted one more, and it was quarantine that I realized, no. Three is plenty,” the actress revealed about the possibility of growing her family. “I don’t think I can spread myself any thinner in this arena.”
Heigl also discussed the challenges of being a working mom, which in her case means sometimes being far away and not being able to communicate all the time.
Heigl also discussed in the interview the challenges of parenting while working for a living. No doubt she finds it difficult, and no doubt most people don’t want to hear a millionaire celebrity complain about having to shoot television shows and movies in exotic locations.
Still, Heigl seems like a devoted mom, and as any mom would tell you, being away from the kids for an extended period of time is hard.
“I can’t easily anymore take them out of school systems and put them into whole new cities and environments,” Heigl said. “I had to live with that aspect of what I do for work, I have to leave my family.”
“I call the kids probably two, three nights a week,” she continued. “I’m not FaceTiming every day — I’m at work, having crap cell service or terrible WiFi. You have to be able to let it go … I’m sure I’ll be paying for their therapy, and mine.”
Heigl is far from the only celebrity bouncing from the crime-ridden, tax-gluttonous city and state of Los Angeles, California. She joins other A-listers like Matthew McConaughy and Mark Wahlberg is fleeing from LA.
“It’s really giving the kids a chance to thrive,” Wahlberg said last fall as he explained why he was done with raising a family in Hollywood. “It [Nevada] just has the best of both worlds. I know a lot of people, when they think Las Vegas, they think the Strip. But just about 15, 20 minutes away, there’s a whole lot of other amazing areas that are all about family and community.”
He went on to say that it was “really about giving the kids an opportunity to pursue their goals and dreams…My daughter’s an equestrian. My son’s a golfer. My oldest daughter, now she’s off to college. My son’s a junior.”
Walhberg also expressed interest in starting over, in a sense, and building a “Hollywood 2.0.”
“I moved to Nevada where, after this gubernatorial election, hopefully it will go to legislation and get a bill passed so we can get a tax credit for the state — build a state-of-the-art studio here and make this Hollywood 2.0,” he said.