Hollywood celebrities have been fleeing California in droves since Joe Biden took office and the country began going downhill. It’s not only celebrities; business and industry have joined celebs and regular people to leave the Golden Coast in search of a more normal life.
Many red states, such as Texas, Tennessee, Florida, and Nevada, offer the promise of less regulation, lower taxes, more personal freedom, and a return to more traditional values as California continues to move further to the left.
Stars such as Mark Wahlberg, Chris Hemsworth, Joe Rogan, and others have fled California for conservative America, and another Hollywood legend is talking about his decision to leave the coast for the Sunshine State.
Two years ago, Sylvester Stallone made the life-altering decision to ditch the West Coast for the complete opposite. Stallone left California and moved to Palm Beach, Florida, which sits on the southeast coast of the Sunshine State.
Stallone left before many of his contemporaries and is now giving some insight into his decision-making process. The “Rocky” icon currently has a Netflix documentary called “Sly,” and in it, he talks about why he was leaving California.
Stallone said: “It’s really easy to become complacent. I thought I gotta do something drastic. Everything’s getting kind of mundane, repetitive, I can feel myself withering a little bit, drying up like an old fig falling off a tree.” He continued: “Jesus, how long am I going to be around, for another 20 years? I don’t want to be complacent for 20 years.”
Ultimately, his home was purchased by pop superstar Adele for a reported $58 million, but the sale hinged on one weird condition. Stallone had a statue of his most iconic character, Rocky, in the house, and while he planned on taking it with him, Adele insisted on the statue staying put as part of the sale.
The “Rambo” star initially balked, saying he wanted the statue to go east with him before Adele said: “That’s a no deal. That’s gonna blow the whole deal.” Stallone came around, saying: “I like what she’s doing, she’s making it gorgeous.”
In 2021, Stallone bought the sprawling $35.4 million dollar house in Palm Beach, Florida. The house sits on 1.5 lakefront acres, with over 250 feet of beach and a dock. However, the star wasn’t moving for aesthetic purposes but rather to stoke his creative fires.
The “Over the Top” star reflected on being a filmmaker and the juxtaposition between home and work: “When you’re young you’re [like] I gotta fill the house with art, I gotta fill the house with children, well, now it’s full, children have moved on, and you’re left with this big, kind of hollow…[mmm]. It doesn’t serve you anymore as a source of inspiration. I wasn’t moving because ‘Oh wow I wanted another beautiful view.’ Any time changing that paradigm which you become used to, it’s literally to jump-start that process again. Every film becomes more and more difficult because you don’t have the freshness of a hungry artist,” he added.
Every business and celebrity has individual reasons for leaving California. Whether it be to jump-start a career like Stallone or to raise your kids as normal people like Mark Wahlberg, one thing is clear: California is losing favor.
What was once the playground for the rich and famous and the ultimate destination for anyone dreaming of making it big, California has become a declining state of high taxes, declining quality of life, and no morals. The migration out is only going to continue until wholesale changes are made from the top down.
Featured image screen grab from embedded YouTube video
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