Television legend Kathie Lee Gifford dropped a bombshell about why so many stars are abandoning Tinseltown for simpler lives.
The former “Today” host knows firsthand what’s driving the celebrity exodus from Hollywood to rural America.
And Kathie Lee Gifford revealed one surprising truth about why celebrities are fleeing Hollywood that explains everything.
Hollywood lifestyle leaves stars feeling empty
The 71-year-old television icon didn’t mince words when explaining why celebrities are trading in their glamorous California lifestyles for more peaceful settings across America.
“They’ve had the other, and it’s not fulfilling,” Gifford told Fox News Digital on the red carpet at QVC’s TikTok Super Brand Day in Santa Monica, California.
Gifford explained that many stars are discovering money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy them a different kind of lifestyle away from Hollywood.
“You get a lot of money, and you notice that by getting a lot of money, they’re able to move someplace where they can have a different kind of lifestyle,” Gifford continued. “They can afford it.”
The television personality should know. In 2019, she left behind her home in Greenwich, Connecticut, where she had spent more than a decade, and relocated to Franklin, Tennessee, just outside Nashville.
There, she owns what she describes as a “little farm” with ten acres, which she says makes her “so happy” despite being modest compared to her celebrity neighbors.
“I have a little farm in Tennessee as well as my home there, and I live next to big, big, big stars who have like 15,000 acres,” she revealed.
A fresh start after heartbreak
Gifford’s move to Tennessee came after experiencing profound personal losses.
Her husband of nearly 30 years, NFL legend Frank Gifford, passed away in August 2015 at age 84. With her children grown and gone, Gifford found herself alone in their spacious Greenwich home.
“I moved here because I was dying of loneliness,” she admitted in a 2019 interview with The Tennessean.
The memories that once made her Connecticut house a home became painful reminders of what she had lost.
“That huge, beautiful, memory-filled home was like a morgue to me,” Gifford said. “Here’s the bad news — I’m a widow, an orphan, and an empty nester. The good news is, I have the freedom of a widow, an orphan and an empty nester.”
Gifford’s move exemplifies a growing trend of celebrities seeking more meaningful lives outside the Hollywood bubble, trading fame and fortune for peace and authenticity.
A French farm in Tennessee
What makes Gifford’s rural Tennessee property unique is its deep personal significance. She renovated her farm to have a French-inspired design as a tribute to her late parents, Aaron and Joan Epstein.
“I’m the only one who has a French farm in Tennessee because I did the whole thing as an homage to my mother and father, who made me in a converted barn in a little village outside of Paris a long, long time ago,” Gifford explained.
She even named the farm “Orval” after the small town outside Paris where she was conceived, as she previously told City Life magazine.
The farm serves as a living memorial to her parents’ remarkable life story, which Gifford plans to document in her final book.
“I want my children and grandchildren and their grandchildren to know about them,” she said. “That will be the last book I write. It’s going to be about my mom and dad and what they did.”
Keeping family ties despite the distance
While Gifford has made Tennessee her full-time home, she maintains strong connections to her past life. She still owns her Connecticut house, which is now occupied by her son Cody and his wife, Erika.
Watching her son raise his family in the same home where he grew up brings Gifford tremendous joy.
“You know how much joy it brings me to see his little boys and my son throwing the football around the same yard that Frank used to throw the football around in,” she shared. “They’re swimming in the same pool, playing on the tennis court, running, just everything.”
Meanwhile, her daughter Cassidy lives near her in Tennessee with her husband and is expecting her second child.
Despite the heartbreak she’s experienced, Gifford maintains her characteristic optimism and faith.
“I know I’ve had great sadness in my life when I lost somebody that I love very much. But I know that I’m gonna see him again. I know exactly where they are,” she said.
Gifford’s story reflects a wider movement of celebrities seeking a more grounded existence away from the artifice of Hollywood—finding fulfillment not in fame or fortune, but in family, faith, and the simple pleasures of rural life.
