A number of celebrities, from Cher to Sharon Stone, vowed to leave the United States if Donald Trump was elected to a second term as president, but Eva Longoria has already made good on her plan to make her home elsewhere.
The Texas-born actor and director explained in a new profile for Marie Claire that she’s done with California and now divides her time between Spain and Mexico. Less than 24 hours after Harris conceded the election to Trump last week, Longoria contacted the Marie Claire writer and said, “The shocking part is not that he won, It’s that a convicted criminal who spews so much hate could hold the highest office.”
Longoria, a longtime activist on behalf of Democrats, Latinos and women, spent the last half of the summer campaigning for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
“I would like to think our fight continues,” Longoria said in the Marie Claire profile, which was published this week. But as the “Desperate Housewives” star was still processing Harris’ loss, she said she can’t pretend to know what will happen next.
America is a “scary place” under a second Trump administration, Longoria said. “If he keeps his promises, it’s going to be a scary place.”
Before the election, Longoria told Marie Claire that she had already moved away from California, where she spent her “whole adult life” building her career in TV and movies.
Longoria, who has Spanish citizenship, and her producer husband José Bastón, a native of Mexico, have been living abroad with their 6-year-old son Santiago while she works on her CNN miniseries “Searching for Spain” — a follow-up to last year’s “Searching for Mexico,” Marie Claire reported.
Work keeps the couple in Europe, Mexico and South America, and Longoria no longer tends to shoot projects in Los Angeles — and she said she doesn’t miss it.
“But even before (the pandemic), it was changing,” Longoria said about Los Angeles. “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 (expletive) on California — it just feels like this chapter in my life is done now.”
“I’m privileged,” Longoria 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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The profile of Longoria comes as Trump has already announced plans to fill key posts in his second administration with a number of controversial, “outlandish” choices, as CNN and MSNBC reported.
They include people like longtime advisor Stephen Miller, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and former Immigration and Customs Enforcement head Tom Homan, who would be tasked with delivering on Trump’s promise to round up and deport an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants.
Trump also wants to make Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz Attorney General, even though the right-wing provocateur is being investigated by the House Ethics Committee for allegations of sexual misconduct. The 47th president-elect also has announced that Elon Musk, his billionaire friend and fervent supporter, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency,” designed to “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure federal agencies.”
As Longoria said, she’s “privileged” and can “escape” as Trump’s MAGA vision takes hold in America.
The Daily Mail reported that Longoria and Bastón, whom she married in 2016, purchased a six-bedroom, seven-bathroom mansion in Marbella, Spain in early 2023. They began shipping their belongings to the villa earlier this year. The Daily Mail also said they had slashed the listing price of their eight-bedroom Beverly Hills home from $22.8 to $18.9 million because they were “ready to get out.”
Even from outside the U.S., Longoria has kept busy with her career and her activism. Upon turning 49, she’s enjoyed a “banner year,” Marie Claire said. Her directorial debut, “Flamin’ Hot,” received an Academy Award nomination for best original song. She continued to work on “Searching for Spain” for CNN, starred in the Apple TV+ series “Land of Women” and made a well-received appearance in an “uproarious” story arc for the hit Hulu show, “Only Murders in the Building.”
Longoria also spoke at the Democratic National Convention in August and released a second cookbook last month. Moreover, she received a blank check of $50 million earlier this year from billionaire Jeff Bezos and his fiancee Lauren Sanchez to distribute to charities of her choice.
The couple were honoring Longoria with their annual Courage and Civility Award — a prize whose name hasn’t necessarily aged well, given that the journalistic community accused Bezos of “cowardice” for ordering editors at the Washington Post, which he owns, to make the last-minute decision to not endorse Harris, Longoria’s preferred candidate.
Longoria told Marie Claire that she plans to use the $50 million to support causes in which she has been invested. Longoria runs her eponymous Eva Longoria Foundation, which she founded in 2012 to “help Latinas build better futures for themselves and their families through education and entrepreneurship.” Longoria also supports Evas Heroes, a group that supports the special needs community, and for which she serves as a director.
When it comes to advocating for the Latino community, Longoria told Marie Claire that she warned the Democratic Party elite that their support among Latino voters was slipping. While a majority of Latino voters still turned out for Harris this election, Trump won 43% of the Latino vote, an eight-point increase from 2020, PBS reported.
Longoria said she told Democrats that Latino voters had grown increasingly sour on the economy and were susceptible to conservative appeals, Marie Claire reported. “We’ve been screaming from the highest rooftop that the Latino vote is not something to take for granted,” Longoria said. “You have to earn it and win it every election cycle.”
Longoria said she’s been strategizing with the party on how candidates in future elections might reverse the trend. “I want to know how we can communicate that government and politics affects your life, whether you like it or not,” she says. “Either you participate in that, or you let somebody else hold the power.”