The Love Boat star Jill Whelan has left Los Angeles — and she’s not looking back.
“My sister and her husband also decided to move to Arizona, so they stayed with us and they’re just about to move out into their place,” Whelan, 58, told People in an interview published on Saturday, May 17. “My son is in school in Tucson, and so that’s pretty magical. We got my mom settled in Arizona, so it’s been a convergence by the Whelans.”
Whelan shares son Harrison, 28, with ex-husband Brad St. John and son Grant, 21, with ex-husband Michael Chaykowsky.
The actress married Jeff Knapple in 2017, recently completing a home renovation project.
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“It is starting to feel like home,” she gushed to People. “It’s been awesome. We are really happy here. It’s a beautiful place.”
Whelan added, “There’s great culture and the community is growing. My mom is here, we have two sons [who] are already there. We’re recruiting everybody else — and we’re recruiting hard.”
Aside from Arizona being nearby to her sons, Whelan also enjoys spending time at her local gym.
“They have a steam room and a sauna, but they also have a cold plunge,” Whelan stated on Saturday, noting she had a change of heart about taking a frigid dip between steam sessions. “But then I said, ‘You can’t be such a baby. You need to get back in there. You got to be in there for one minute.’ So I went back in, dunked in for about two seconds and was like, ‘Nope, not ready yet.’ I have to say, it was actually really awesome. I do plan on getting to that one-minute goal in the cold plunge at some point.”
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Whelan is best known for playing Vicki Stubing, daughter of Captain Stubing (Gavin MacLeod), for six seasons of The Love Boat. She reprised her role for a limited guest arc on 1998’s Love Boat: The Next Wave revival.
“I miss the camaraderie, I miss the fellowship [and] I miss the paycheck,” she quipped of the iconic series during a May 2024 episode of the “Still Here Hollywood” podcast. “I think that’s it because the people, we were so close.”
Since the Love Boat disembarked from the airways, Whelan has prioritized her family and recently hosted a Mother’s Day brunch in Arizona earlier this month.
“An amazing #mothersday in #scottsdale @theeleanoraz Dave and his crew were so special and the food was spectacular,” she gushed via Instagram on May 11. “Can’t wait to try their dinner restaurant @oliversaz — the menu looks perfect! Thanks for making our Mother’s Day perfect!”
