Why the Cotswolds is bracing itself for an American invasion

From Ellen DeGeneres to Barbra Streisand, Trump’s victory has prompted the Left’s rich and famous to threaten self-imposed exile

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Over the years, Donald Trump has considered all sorts of melodramatic solutions to what he perceives is an immigration crisis in the USA: mass deportations, an alligator-filled moat, an electrified wall.
It turns out all he had to do was win another presidential election and wait. Because if even half the number of liberal celebrities who’ve claimed they’ll flee to seek refuge abroad really do go, net migration should be balanced in no time.
Call it The Donald Dash, The Trump Jump or the Maga Stagger, but report after report emerging from the other side of the Atlantic suggests the great Democrat evacuation has begun. Throwing one’s toys out of the pram is not enough; this time, the entire pram – no, stroller – must relocate.
Invariably, the safe haven these tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free have settled on is Britain. More specifically? The Cotswolds. Even more specifically? The lovely, expensive bits of the Cotswolds. Let’s hope they like farm shops.
The latest names added to the roll call of US stars who’ve had enough are Ellen DeGeneres and her wife, Portia de Rossi. The pair currently reside in Montecito, California, but even the pleasure of being near-neighbours to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex isn’t enough to keep them Stateside anymore.
Sources “with direct knowledge” told the deeply reputable US showbiz outlet TMZ that “Ellen and Portia have settled in a new home in the Cotswolds”. Allegedly the couple, who donated money to Kamala Harris’s campaign, bought it before the election but were “very disillusioned” with Trump’s victory and decided “to get the hell out.”
They join Barbra Streisand, who recently said she “can’t live in [the US] if he becomes president” and confirmed “probably England, I like England” when asked where she’d go instead. UK-born, but LA-based Minnie Driver and Sophie Turner have both returned, too.
Meanwhile, the Barbie and Ugly Betty actress America Ferrera has been spotted house hunting in the Barnes area of south-west London. Whether she’s considering changing her first name to Richmond Ferrera as part of her self-exile remains to be seen.
Then there’s Sharon Stone, who’d reportedly like to sample the “dolce vita” in Italy rather than stay in the doldrums of Beverly Hills, and Eva Longoria, who now splits her time between Spain and Mexico. Longoria denies it was because of Trump, but has said she’s “privileged, I get to escape and go somewhere” while “most Americans aren’t so lucky. They’re going to be stuck in this dystopian country.” And, finally, there’s the “anywhere” crew, who just want out: these include Whoopi Goldberg (before hastily backtracking), the pop star Cardi B, Elon Musk’s daughter Vivian Wilson, plus Cher.
“I almost got an ulcer the last time,” Cher told the Guardian last year. “If he gets in, who knows? This time I will leave [the country].” And she will. Her book tour takes her to London for a night at the Lyceum on Monday. She’s back home in Los Angeles a week later, but still: technically, she’ll have left the country. If she could turn back time…
But it’s the Cotswolds that’s bracing itself for an invasion. Harry Gladwin, head of Cotswolds at The Buying Solution, says there has been “a noticeable uptick in interest from American buyers in the Cotswolds recently – up 30per cent over the past year, with a 50 per cent increase in rental inquiries over the last month alone”.
That’s a lot. “Yes, well there’s definitely been a lot more activity. There’s all sorts of reasons why this could be happening, but there’s a significant uptick,” Gladwin says. “The rentals are usually for six to 12 months, and that’s people who don’t know the area very well, so they try before they buy. Though of course if you want to buy right away, you always can, you just have to be prepared to pay a huge premium.”
The UK, he says, is viewed by Americans as a stable at the moment. “Incredibly safe, very politically stable, and we haven’t got a lot of the issues other countries have. Anecdotally, I’ve spoken to lots of Americans over the years and the gun crime problem is a real worry for them, especially people with young children. We just don’t have that here.
“So is healthcare – however rich you are, you can still be bankrupt if you get ill. And women’s rights, how that’ll be handled over the Trump presidency is probably not great news unless you’re pretty heavily Right-wing. So for all of our problems, at least we haven’t got that.”
It’s a sentiment ricocheting around the e-mail chains between A-listers and their financial advisors at the moment: “At least over there is not over here”. Dominic Volek, group head of private clients at London-based Henley & Partners, which advises the wealthy on international migration, told CNBC that his company has “never seen demand like we see now”.
For the first time, Volek added, wealthy Americans represented the company’s largest client base, making up 20 per cent of its business. The number of Americans making plans to move abroad is up 30 per cent on last year.
Of course, there is some historical precedent for celebrities being fickle and histrionic when it comes to election results they do not like. In 2016, Miley Cyrus, Bryan Cranston, Whoopi Goldberg, Samuel L Jackson, Chelsea Handler and Lena Dunham all said they’d leave the country if Trump won that year’s election. All stayed. (Dunham, in her defence, does now live in London.)
“I’m not f—ing leaving the country, that’s some ignorant s—, that’s dumb,” Cyrus said in 2017, having previously insisted she would leave, then insisting further that she doesn’t “say things I don’t mean.”
Were she to go, she came to realise: “That’s me abandoning my country when I think I’ve got a good thing to say to my country. And trust me, I hear every day on my Instagram, ‘Just leave already! When are you going to leave?’ Well, that’s not going to be any good.”
And so Stow-on-the-Wold was spared Miley Cyrus, for now. But she’d have glamorous company in the Cotswolds. Everyone from the Beckhams to Kate Moss, Kate Winslet to Jamie Dornan are there, as well as anybody who blows in through Soho Farmhouse and Estelle Manor, the plush members club hotels.
“You’ve got a whole range of communities out here now. It’s not just the traditional British country folk. It’s everyone from crypto millionaires to film directors, actors, TV presenters, obviously the hedge fund lot, as well as all the ‘normal’ people who live and work here,” Gladwin says.
A consequence, he adds, is that more and more high net-worth clients who kept a cottage in the “Couttswolds” and had a main home in London – typically Notting Hill – are switching that, taking advantage of the value of the dollar versus the pound and “basing themselves in the country while maintaining a pied-à-terre in the city.”
Those who wish to find other Harris-supporting celebrities and the kind of picturebook villages they’ve seen in romantic comedies might gravitate towards Chipping Norton, or try and turn Moreton-in-Marsh into the new Montecito. Those who want something more low-key and rural (and cheaper) might go for the up-and-coming CV36, which is technically – whisper it – Warwickshire.
A bolthole is just what these Democrat-voting celebrities are seeking: somewhere to bury their heads, take refuge and wait it out. Gladwin has lived in the Cotswolds all his life and worked in the property industry there for a quarter of a century. It has always attracted wealthy Americans, he says, but there are now so many more reasons for them to be there, be it high-end spas or private schools. Plus, of course, People Who Think Like Them.
Because that is really what they’re after. At some point it may be kindest to simply fence them all into Cotswolds and create a literal bubble for the implants there, should enough follow Ellen’s lead. In which case, we might need to find a good builder for a big, beautiful border wall.
Some bad news, though: it was reported last week that Donald Trump may be invited on a second state visit to the UK at some point next year. There’s no escape for the disgusted and disaffected celebrities of the West Coast. They’ll just have to focus on campaigning for Californian secession instead.
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