Jessica Biel talked about why she and husband Justin Timberlake decided to move their family out of Los Angeles and New York, and said it was to give their kids some “sense of normalcy.”
During her appearance on Kelly Ripa’s podcast “Let’s Talk Off Camera,” the 42-year-old actress said living in the spotlight on both the west and east coast was too much and not the life she and her 43-year-old singer husband wanted for their two sons.
Biel and Timberlake — who have been raising their young sons on the property in Big Sky, Montana they bought in 2015 — said that “You get hammered in the East Coast, you kinda get hammered on the West Coast.”
“That’s why we don’t really live there anymore,” Biel said. “It’s just trying to create some normalcy for these kids. We wanna share our family with our loved ones and friends.”
Jessica Biel reveals why she and Justin Timberlake keep their family AWAY from New York and Los Angeles https://t.co/mVMFqjK3hu pic.twitter.com/BBKbzNYhCP
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) May 23, 2024
“I don’t wanna expose them in a way until they have an ability to make that decision for themself,” Biel continued.
And when it comes to social media, the “7th Heaven” star said both she and her husband choose not to really share photos of the kids on social media, saying she knows that the “social media world” will one day be a “very big part of their life and their reality.”
“I just don’t want it to be on my account,” the actress explained. “So we try to engage in a way that feels authentic but also just not blasting them all over the place.”
“And no disrespect to anybody who feels comfortable doing that,” she added. “That’s just our family choice. Maybe it’s a mistake, maybe it’s not.”
In 2022, the superstar couple sold their penthouse in New York City for $29 million, E! News noted. In 2021, they put their Los Angeles mansion up for sale for $35 million, before taking down the listing, the outlet noted.
Biel and Timberlake aren’t the only celebrities that have opted out of raising kids in Hollywood. Most recently, Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling reportedly decided to leave Hollywood and raise their kids elsewhere because they preferred not to have their daughters growing up around “celebrity” children.
A source close to the “Barbie” star and the “Hitch” star said that they have moved “a bit further north” outside of Tinseltown for the benefit of their girls Esmerelda, 9, and Amanda, 7, People magazine noted.
“For them, the most important job is their girls,” the source told the outlet. “Everything else comes second. And their girls are thriving. They left L.A. to live a bit further north, away from Hollywood. They didn’t want the girls to grow up around other celebrity kids.”
Related: “Hollywood Is Not America.” Why So Many Celebrities Are Leaving Los Angeles
