When it comes to relocating her family from the United States, Eva Longoria had her reasons — and they had nothing to do with Donald Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, despite popular belief.
Days after expressing her anxieties about the president-elect’s win during an interview with Marie Claire, the “Desperate Housewives” alum took some time to clear the air about her move.
“Will you please let them know I didn’t move out of the United States because of Trump?” she told Ana Navarro during a call into “The View: Behind the Table” podcast on Friday. “I’ve been in Europe for almost three years. That’s in the article, by the way, the article says that. People just grabbed some clickbait stuff to be divisive. Which makes me so sad that everything you say is just meant to be divisive when we can’t be that way right now.”
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“I didn’t leave because of the political environment. I left because my work took me there,” she added. “I’m a proud American. I’ve always been a proud American. Proud Texan, proud American,” Longoria continued. “I didn’t want it to be taken that I left because of Trump — absolutely not — or because of the elections.”
In the Marie Claire article, Longoria — who splits her time between her homes in Spain and Mexico with her husband, José Bastón, and their 6-year-old son, Santiago — shared her thoughts post-election.
“I would like to think our fight continues,” she said, noting that she thinks the country is “a scary place” with Trump’s leadership.
“I’m privileged,” she added. “I get to escape and go somewhere. Most Americans aren’t so lucky. They’re going to be stuck in this dystopian country, and my anxiety and sadness is for them.”
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Recalling Trump’s victory in 2016, Longoria said she felt emotionally defeated.
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“I’ve never been depressed in my life,” she told Marie Claire. “It was like, ‘Does my vote really matter? Am I really making a difference?’” she said. “I was so untethered to the core of what I believe because I truly believed in my soul that the best person wins. And then that happened, and I was like, ‘Oh, wait. The best person doesn’t win.’”
Longoria noted in the interview that she lived in the U.S. for her “whole adult life.”
“But even before [the pandemic], it was changing. The vibe was different. And then COVID happened, and it pushed it over the edge. Whether it’s the homelessness or the taxes, not that I want to s— on California — it just feels like this chapter in my life is done now,” she said.
In the months leading up to the 2024 presidential election, many celebrities proudly vocalized their opinions on Trump.
While some showed support, others, including Sharon Stone, Cher and Barbra Streisand, have expressed their disapproval and even threatened to leave the U.S. if he were to be elected.
“I am certainly considering a house in Italy,” Stone told the Daily Mail in July. “I think that’s an intelligent construct at this time. This is one of the first times in my life that I’ve actually seen anyone running for office on a platform of hate and oppression.”
In a 2023 interview with The Guardian, Cher said, “I almost got an ulcer the last time. If he gets in, who knows? This time I will leave [the country].”
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Streisand told host Stephen Colbert that she wouldn’t be able to “live in this country if he becomes president,” and admitted she’d probably move to England.
This idea of celebrities fleeing the country after an election is nothing new, says Doug Eldridge, founder of Achilles PR.
“Every four years, you hear the same recycled rhetoric from celebrities. It’s become a running joke at this point. It’s ‘all talk, no walk,’” Eldridge told Fox News Digital.
Fox News Digital’s Caroline Thayer contributed to this post.
