Mark Wahlberg to Leave Hollywood For ‘A Better Life’ for His Family
By Movieguide® Contributor
Mark Wahlberg is one of the many celebrities choosing to leave Hollywood and raise their families outside of the entertainment capital.
The action star recently revealed that he was selling his Los Angeles home and moving his family to Nevada in pursuit of a “better life.”
“I want to be able to work from home,” Wahlberg shared. “I moved to California many years ago to pursue acting, and I’ve only made a couple of movies in the entire time that I was there.
“So, to be able to give my kids a better life and follow and pursue their dreams whether it be my daughter as an equestrian, my son as a basketball player, my younger son as a golfer, this made a lot more sense for us,” the actor continued.
Wahlberg and his wife Rhea have four children: Ella, 18, Michael, 16, Brendan, 13, and Grace, 12.
“We came [to Nevada] to just kind of give ourselves a new look, a fresh start for the kids, and there’s a lot of opportunity here,” Wahlberg said. “I’m really excited about the future.”
Wahlberg isn’t the only celebrity who has moved their family out of Hollywood.
Movieguide® previously reported on Matthew and Camilla McConaughey’s life in Texas:
Camilla Alves McConaughey is sharing what it’s like to raise her family in Texas, focusing on attending church every Sunday. She and her husband, Matthew McConaughey, share three children: Levi, 13, Vida, 12, and Livingston, 9.
“It’s been great,” she told Fox News. “It really embodies our belief system, especially the ones I grew up with, like going to church every Sunday, saying ‘yes ma’am’ or ‘no, sir.’ I grew up saying those things coming from a family of farmers. For me, being from Brazil and then coming to Texas, I discovered a lot of similarities in terms of what families practice here, especially going to church on Sundays, and being very into the outdoors. It’s been a great transition.”
Most would assume she and her actor husband would live in Hollywood, but Camilla shared that raising their children in the public eye wasn’t working for them.
“We lived in Malibu for many years and having the paparazzi outside our door every day – every single day – when that becomes your normal, you don’t realize how much that’s actually affecting the things you do until you actually leave and get out of it,” she explained. “The kids get to have a private way of growing up. So from that perspective, it was very important.”
Movieguide® also reported on Alexa and Carlos PenaVega’s decision to move their family to Hawaii:
Alexa and Carlos PenaVega just announced their third child is on the way!
For the Christian couple, this new blessing from the Lord is yet another reminder as to why they put faith and family over over their careers.
Alexa, 32, and Carlos, 31, said that they left the fast-paced, career-driven lifestyle of L.A. to establish a home on Maui.
“When we were living in California, there was never actually a break. The industry happens 24/7,” Alexa told PEOPLE earlier this fall. “And we thought, we need a place to go and reconnect and that needs to be our home.”
Alexa starred in the SPY KIDS franchise in the early 2000s, and Carlos is known for his role in Nickelodeon’s BIG TIME RUSH, which was both a band and a TV series that ran from 2009 to 2013. The couple also appears in some Hallmark movies both together and separately.
Despite their success, they felt like their values never aligned with the industry.
“We’ve never fit the Hollywood mold,” Alexa said. “We’ve never done things in the conventional way.”
As the couple started to look elsewhere for a new home, faith became the determining factor for their movie.
“We visited Maui and we started finding all of these young Christian couples,” Carlos said. “We prayed on it and then we moved here three months later.”
The couple said that their new community’s support and time to rest confirmed that their decision to move was beneficial for their growing family.
“We immediately felt that weight lifted,” Alexa said. “We can really recharge here and it’s been awesome to have a community that’s supportive.”