‘Everything’s f---ing ridiculous there’: Why British stars are fleeing America to return home

“It’s time.” Cat Deeley called it early, next came James Corden, then Ozzy Osbourne and now Sir Roderick himself. One by one they have all packed their bags, the American dream that lured four of our greatest exports across the pond (remember Deeley was at the height of her powers in 2006, helming the ratings gold that was Fame Academy) having fizzled out. It was time, they announced bravely, for them to come home.

Why? Ozzy sums it up rather well. “Everything’s f—ing ridiculous there.”

Yes, the general consensus among Britain’s US escapees appears to be a kind of weariness with the very Americanness of America. Some feared raising their children in a country marred by gun crime, others appear to have simply grown tired of la la land.

Sir Rod is selling his $80m (£63m) villa in Los Angeles and sailing home again, ‘cross the sea, back to Essex. “The whole family lived [in LA] for 30 years,” said Tomer Fridman, the real estate agent on the sale. “The children grew up there, and he’s got grandchildren already. He’s touring, and he lives in Europe a lot of the time. He built a whole life there, and it’s just time.”

He’ll still work in the US – he is currently wrapping up a residency in Las Vegas and gearing up for a tour in North America in 2024 – but Sir Rod is selling the LA pile that The New York Times described as marrying “the architecture of an English country estate with the Baroque flair of Versailles”, apparently keen to spend more time at home.

Home is Harlow, a development on the edge of Epping Forest. It’s possible Rod felt the pull back to Blighty having got a taste for local politics last year, when he filmed himself filling in potholes on a stretch of road near his 18th century estate with a truck load of gravel and help from “the boys”. He’d grown tired of the council’s lack of urgency in dealing with the poor road surfaces that were threatening his Ferrari. That’s what they come back home for, these celebrities, the chance to become a local hero.

There was a time, of course, when top British talent went to the US, courted by American studios with huge budgets and a penchant for an English accent. So many went – Hugh Laurie, Damian Lewis, Idris Elba. Now, it seems there are finally good jobs to be found closer to home.

Cat Deeley, the darling of 1990s British reality TV, lived in the US for 14 years, becoming an award-winning host of shows like So You Think You Can Dance (which earned her five Emmy nominations and an estimated £15m). America loved her, but by the time she had become a mother to two boys, Milo and James (with her former Fame Academy co-host Patrick Kielty) she had fallen out of love with the States. She is back just in the nick of time to take over the Holly Willoughby slot on This Morning, alongside Good Morning Britain’s Ben Shephard. A source told The Sun: “Cat really impressed when she came in, and Ben is a consummate professional and hugely popular with the housewife demographic.”

The chance to return to a spot on primetime British TV wasn’t the only draw though. Looking around LA schools for her eldest son, Deeley said she was struck by the very real threat of gun violence for America’s schoolchildren. “Fear was part of this,” she told You Magazine. “There was a moment when I was with a friend looking at potential schools for Milo and we had to ask the question nobody wants to: ‘What do you do if there is a live shooter on the premises?’

“They tell you exactly what would happen, whether the kids would go to a safe room or hide under the desks… The danger suddenly becomes a reality.”

Kielty and their eldest son were caught up in an incident in 2019 when a shooter was on the loose in an LA mall. “They shut down the centre. I got a call from Paddy, saying, ‘They’re taking us out through the fire exits but nobody can get to their car. If we walk to a junction, can you come and get us?’

“He wanted to keep Milo calm, so I didn’t understand the enormity of what was happening. As I was driving I began to see helicopters, news vans, firemen and SWAT squads. It makes me go funny now. It was terrifying... Paddy was shaken by it, more than Milo, who was hot and cranky, but didn’t properly understand.”

America’s gun control laws have spurred the Osbournes to up sticks too. “I’m fed up with people getting killed every day,” Ozzy said. “God knows how many people have been shot in school shootings. And there was that mass shooting in Vegas at that concert… It’s f—ing crazy.”

The US has long been their home – it was once the setting for their eponymous reality TV series where cameras followed their domestic life, filming their every move. Now, at 75, the heavy metal singer has one eye on his final act. He revealed he had been diagnosed with Parkinsons in 2020. “I don’t want to die in America,” Osbourne told The Observer, before railing against California’s celebrity cemetery, resting place of, among others, Michael Jackson. “I don’t want to be buried in f—ing Forest Lawn.”

Ozzy, who grew up in Birmingham, had said the final call would be Sharon’s. “I’m English. I want to be back. But saying that, if my wife said we’ve got to go and live in Timbuktu, I’ll go… But, no, it’s just time for me to come home.”

Sharon told Woman’s Hour last month that a “small town” lifestyle in the country had become appealing to them. At home in Buckinghamshire, Ozzy can “pursue his hobbies that he loves doing without being bothered.” The locals are thrilled – one told the Bucks Free Press: “Welcome home. Please don’t leave us again.”

In neighbouring Berkshire, the Cordens are back and said to be building a new home. James bought a house there in 2020, three years before he announced he was stepping down from presenting the Late Late Show and coming back to Britain. He has been given the go ahead to tear it down and build a six-bedroom house with an outdoor pool, a sauna and steam room. That is something to bear in mind – the more celebrities that feel the pull back home, the more planning applications for home spas councils will have to process.

Corden’s reasons for returning are twofold. He wants to be closer to family. “I’m really going to miss Los Angeles,” he told his old pal Adele on the final Carpool Karaoke. “It’s been a brilliant adventure but I’m just so certain that it’s time for us as a family – with people getting older, people that we miss – it’s time to go home.”

After eight years as Mr American Chat Show Host, Corden also fancies returning to his roots. Gavin and Stacey rumours swirl periodically, but it’s the stage that Corden says he is craving. He won a Tony in 2012 for One Man, Two Guvnors and is chomping at the bit to return to the West End. “It couldn’t feel more urgent within me to leave to do that,” he said. “I will be really, really upset with myself if, in the next year or year and a half or so, I don’t go do another play or revisit a play I’ve already done. I would give anything to go back and do a show again. I’d give absolutely anything.”

He leaves behind him in LA a community of British escapees. So who can we expect to follow him across the pond next? You feel by rights we should get Adele back at some point. And what about Emily Blunt – wouldn’t she like a nice big house in Hampstead and the chance to give her daughters English accents? One member of the LA expat WhatsApp group who may be in it for the long haul is Corden’s best pal Prince Harry. “I’ll always be in their corner,” he told The Sun of the Sussexes last year. Yes, but unless the Sussexes make their own dramatic return to these shores, you won’t be round the corner any more, will you James?

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