France has officially granted citizenship to George Clooney, his wife Amal, and their twins, Ella and Alexander, via decrees published in the country’s Journal Officiel. The naturalization confirms that the family’s primary residence is now in France, where they have owned a former wine estate, Domaine du Canadel, near the village of Brignoles in Provence, since 2021.
Clooney has described the property as a farm and the main base for his family life, marking a significant shift away from Los Angeles, the traditional center of his industry and personal brand. For a two-time Oscar winner closely identified with Hollywood, turning a Provençal farm into “home” is itself a strong signal about where he believes his children’s future—and his own equilibrium—can best be protected. But it also amounts to a quiet referendum on the viability of the American Dream, even for the ultra-visible, ultra-wealthy class he represents. His move underscores how privacy, stability, and a less celebrity-obsessed culture have become premium “assets” that some high earners no longer see as reliably available in the United States.
A personal hedge against ‘Hollywood culture’
Clooney has been unusually explicit about why he no longer wants to raise his family in Los Angeles. “I was worried about raising our kids in L.A., in the culture of Hollywood,” he told Esquire recently, adding that he felt they were “never going to get a fair shake at life” there. He further explained that “France—they kind of don’t give a s— about fame,” and emphasized that he does not want his children “walking around worried about paparazzi” or “being compared to somebody else’s famous kids.”
He has also argued that his twins “have a much better life” in France than they would have had in Los Angeles, describing their routine on the farm as screen-light, chore-heavy, and family-centered. In that framing, France is less a romantic escape than a structural solution to the distortions that come with U.S. celebrity culture—and, by extension, a critique of a system that often markets visibility as a reward but delivers surveillance as a cost.
What this says about the American Dream
For much of the 20th century, the American Dream was sold as a package of meritocracy, upward mobility, and cultural centrality: make it in America, and you are at the center of the world. Clooney’s relocation suggests that for some of the people who “made it,” the dream now requires an offshore upgrade. The same U.S. system that enabled him to build wealth and status appears, in his telling, ill-suited to giving his children a “fair shake” or a normal childhood.
By choosing a jurisdiction with strict privacy rules—France has strong protections against photographing children and tighter limits on paparazzi—Clooney is effectively arbitraging regulatory environments to secure non-financial returns: anonymity for his kids and a slower pace of life. That logic mirrors how multinational companies optimize tax or labor regimes, but here the asset being safeguarded is family life rather than corporate profit.
Anecdotal evidence supports the idea that the ultrawealthy from the U.S. are increasingly deciding that their American Dream lies overseas. Ellen Degeneres and Portia De Rossi famously moved to the UK shortly after President Donald Trump was reelected, while Rosie O’Donnell, often a target of pointed attacks from Trump, qualified for Irish citizenship and moved to Dublin. Richard Gere, like Clooney, seemed to move for love, relocating to Spain to be close to the family and culture of his wife, Alejandra Silva. Fashion designer Tom Ford splashed out on a large mansion in London and has begun calling the UK home, while former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has purchased a house in London as well.
The data shows a wider spike in expat movements. The IRS “Expatriation List” (which mainly captures wealthier individuals who meet certain asset or tax thresholds) recorded about 4,820 citizenship renunciations in 2024, up roughly 48% from 2023 and the third‑highest annual total on record. (The top two years on record were the epochal years of 2016, when Trump was elected, and 2020, when the pandemic hit and Trump lost reelection.) Between 2020 and 2024, about 21,000 high‑net‑worth individuals renounced U.S. citizenship, which is roughly 39% of all expatriations reported since this list began in 1996. These figures likely undercount the prominent departures because they only include so‑called “covered expatriates” (people above a net‑worth or tax‑liability threshold) and exclude less‑wealthy renouncers and many who move without giving up citizenship. The New Yorker even wrote an article recently, titled “How to leave the USA,” citing surges in citizenship applications to both Ireland and the UK in particular.
A case study in elite ‘life diversification’
Clooney’s family still maintains ties to the U.S. and the U.K., and the new French nationality comes on top of Clooney’s existing American citizenship, not in place of it. In portfolio terms, the family appears to be diversifying not just its investments and passports but also its exposure to cultural and media risk, shifting the center of gravity to a country where fame carries fewer day-to-day penalties.
For business readers, the move looks less like an indulgent lifestyle play and more like a strategic reallocation of intangible capital: time, privacy, and mental health. If even one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars concludes that the full expression of his “dream” requires decoupling from the ecosystem that made him rich, it raises a sharp question for the U.S.: when success at the very top comes with conditions that drive families to look elsewhere, what, exactly, is the American Dream still promising?
Politics8 years ago