Actress Patricia Heaton explains why she moved from LA to Nashville
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Actress Patricia Heaton explained why she left Los Angeles in a podcast interview on Monday, citing crime, homelessness and high taxes.
Heaton spoke with host Dave Rubin on “The Rubin Report” about filming “Unexpected” in Oklahoma and said he’s also been working outside of Los Angeles.
“We had shot the movie in Oklahoma, then we were shooting it somewhere else, it was outside of Los Angeles, and we thought taxes were high, crime was high, homelessness was high, and we weren’t working in Los Angeles as much as we were working outside of Los Angeles. So why don’t we leave?” he told Rubin.
“And so we said, let’s go to Nashville, because we were familiar with it. We had friends there, and you know, we never really looked back,” he continued.
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Patricia Heaton speaks onstage during The Lawfare Project Hamptons 2025 Benefit To #EndJewHatred at Southampton Center for the Arts on August 7, 2025 in Southampton, New York. (Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for The Lawfare Project/End Jew Hate)
“And now that I’m back, does it feel different to me because I’m not working here anymore, or has that really changed? I think there’s some sadness in that that I think is real, and it’s not just because of my experience,” Heaton added.
He said many writers from his previous shows, “Everybody Loves Raymond” and “The Middle,” have returned to their hometowns.
“We got an email from a writer saying, ‘You came out at the right time,'” Heaton said. He noted that there are soundstages in Los Angeles that are now empty.
“Where we shot ‘The Middle’ is at Warner Ranch, right next to Warner Brothers. And there were houses like the ‘Walton’ house, the ‘Lethal Weapon’ house, the ‘Bewitched’ house, and the ‘Friends’ Fountain. They were all torn down and they built a ton of soundstages, and then the pandemic happened and the strikes happened and there were just a bunch of empty soundstages there now,” he said.
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Following the fires in Los Angeles earlier this year, Heaton teamed up with the LA Dream Center to help residents in need and criticized local and state officials for their response. He said the city did not appear to be prepared for the fires that began burning in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood on Jan. 7.
“I know some officials are saying, ‘The system is overwhelmed.’ In the event of a major fire, of course it will be overwhelmed,” he told Fox News Digital in January. “You have to know that and be prepared for it. So I think there’s a lot of money being spent in Los Angeles and we don’t understand where it’s going.”
Heaton insisted that California residents “can’t just rely on the government to get things done.”
“In your community, people come together and insist that things get done. And unfortunately that’s a very, very, very harsh lesson,” he said.
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Patricia Heaton attended the Gurus Beauty Awards 2025 held at The Aster on July 7, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Michael Tullberg/Getty Images)
Comedian and actor John O’Hurley said in a November interview on Fox News’ “The Brian Kilmeade Show” that he was “reluctantly” still living in Los Angeles but probably wouldn’t stay for very long.
“Most of the work I do is sound work. I can fly to most of it. I’ve done five movies this year. I haven’t done a single one of them in Los Angeles,” he said.
O’Hurley noted that California’s shrinking film industry is one of the reasons that is driving people away, noting that most of his recent projects have been shot in other locations such as Georgia, Tennessee and New York.
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Fox News’ Madison Columbo contributed to this report.
