‘Star Wars’ Icon Wanted to Leave U.S. After Election: Here’s Why He Stayed originally appeared on Parade.
Star Warsactor Mark Hamill was determined to move out of the country following the results of the 2024 election — but something, or someone rather, made him change his mind.
“I still believe there are more honest, decent people than there are the MAGA crowd,” Hamill, 73, told The Times. He explained that he and his wife Marilou York were considering a move to either London or Ireland. Hamill changed his mind after his wife put an interesting thought in his head.
“She’s very clever. She didn’t respond right away but a week later she said, ‘I’m surprised you would allow him to force you out of your own country.’ That son of a b****, I thought. I’m not leaving,” he told the outlet.
If Hamill did decide to leave the United States, he wouldn’t have been the first celebrity to do so. Former talk show hosts Rosie O’Donnell and Ellen DeGeneres have both since relocated abroad since Donald Trump became president for a second time.
For her part, O’Donnell moved to Ireland — and she has said that the decision was best for her and her family.
“It’s not easy to move to another country, and we really felt as a family this was the safest and best thing for us to do,” O’Donnell said in a March TikTok. “It looks like sadly we were correct for what’s happening in the United States is overwhelmingly depressing, unconstitutional, illegal, criminal, and so so very sad.”
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Meanwhile, DeGeneres and her wife Portia de Rossi moved to the UK in 2024.
“We got here the day before the election and woke up to lots of texts from our friends with crying emojis, and I was like, ‘He got in.’ And we’re like, ‘We’re staying here,'” she said during a show at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham, according to NBC News.
‘Star Wars’ Icon Wanted to Leave U.S. After Election: Here’s Why He Stayed first appeared on Parade on Aug 18, 2025
This story was originally reported by Parade on Aug 18, 2025, where it first appeared.
