James Cameron has revealed his plans to up sticks and move to New Zealand because he’s just that ‘sickened’ by US President Donald Trump.
The esteemed Hollywood filmmaker, 70, behind movies such as Titanic, Aliens, and Avatar, has said he’s been ‘working towards’ the move for some time.
Born in Canada, Cameron and his family moved to California in the early 1970s and he entered the film industry after the excitement of seeing Star Wars in 1977.
But, while the Terminator 2 director is still making films – he’s currently working on another Avatar sequel – he’s ready to turn his back on California and the United States altogether.
With President Trump back in the White House after winning the 2024 US Presidential election, Cameron has decided now is the time to head to pastures new.
‘I see a turn away from everything decent,’ he told Stuff on YouTube. ‘America doesn’t stand for anything if it doesn’t stand for what it has historically stood for.
‘[America] becomes a hollow idea, and I think they’re hollowing it out as fast as they can for their own benefit.’
He continued: ‘I don’t know if I feel any safer [in New Zealand], but I certainly feel like I don’t have to read about it on the front page every single day. And it’s just sickening.
‘There’s something nice about the New Zealand outlets – at least they’ll put it on page three. I just don’t want to see that guy’s face anymore on the front page of the paper.’
Speaking about the coverage of Trump in America, Cameron said: ‘It’s inescapable there, it’s like watching a car crash over and over and over.’
It’s not the first time that Cameron has had choice words for the 45th and 47th American President, with his criticism going back to the beginning of Trump’s first term.
In 2017 he told The Daily Beast that ‘it’s basically the upside-down world right now, and the kind of dialogue coming out of these guys sounds like George Orwell.’
‘Years ago, we sort of spotted the iceberg ahead of us and we called out the order to turn, and we’ve been slowly, slowly, slowly trying to turn this big-ass ship to not hit the iceberg.
‘[But] then Trump grabbed the tiller and just plunged it right back at the centre of the iceberg,’ he added, criticising Trump’s policies on climate change.
A year earlier, in 2016, he had called Trump a ‘madman’ in front of a large crowd at the Democratic National Convention, with Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton watching on.
Trump had vowed to exit the Paris climate change agreement in 2016, but failed to do so in his first term – he has since announced his attention to withdraw once again in 2025.
Twenty one years ago, Cameron was in the middle of applying for US citizenship but decided to abandon the application after Republican President George W Bush was re-elected in 2004.
And he isn’t the celebrity who has made plans to leave America after Trump’s victory, with numerous famous faces feeling that now is the time to get out of there.
Ellen DeGeneres and her wife Portia De Rossi have apparently moved to the Cotswolds, while Cher vowed to leave the US after ‘getting an ulcer’ the last time Trump was President.
Game of Thrones actress Sophie Turner and Lady Bird star Soairse Ronan also moved back to the UK after both admitted to feeling unsafe in America.
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