What do you say to Richard Gere when he rocks up next to you at the school gates? Is it rude to ask for an autograph or a selfie? Would it be wrong to offer him a quick critique of his performances in An Officer and a Gentleman, The Cotton Club or Pretty Woman? Then again, is it even really him?
A friend from those very same school gates told me that Richard Gere, like many a famous person, doesn’t quite look like his screen self in the flesh. But it is him. Gere, 75, might be a Hollywood heart-throb of yesteryear, but he’s also just another older-generation parent doing the school run at a private school near Madrid.
He’s married to Alejandra Silva, a political activist, and the couple, who married in 2018, have two young sons together, plus children from previous relationships. So Gere flogged his Connecticut home last year for $11m and brought his family across the Atlantic.
The political climate in the US is clearly a crucial factor in the Geres moving here. It’s fair to say he isn’t a fan of Donald Trump.
“We’re in a very dark place in America,” Gere said an award ceremony in Granada, southern Spain, in February. “We have a bully and a thug in the White House.”
Gere is an outrider for a horde of American migrants fleeing the US since Trump won the presidency in November. The number of Americans searching Google for advice on moving abroad rose by over 1,500% after the election, with Spain emerging as a top choice.
There was a 57% increase in the sale of Spanish villas to US citizens in the first quarter of 2025 compared with 2024. One American, Jason Lee, even bought an entire abandoned village for €310,000.
Buyers are attracted to the lovely weather and lifestyle, good healthcare and low prices relative to the average city in the US. For families, there are also American schools in Valencia, Madrid, Barcelona, the Canary Islands, Málaga and Bilbao.
Madrid and Barcelona are popular choices, but so is Valencia. Americans are now the top customers for Graham Hunt, who runs the real estate agency Valencia Property. “We have had special interest from minority groups like LGBTQ+ and American Hispanics and anyone with a conscience,” he told the Daily Beast. “All of them put as number one reason anything from Trump to DOGE (and) all the way to full-on fascism and isolationism.”
The spike in sales was also partly driven by Americans getting ahead of the Spanish government scrapping the Golden Visa scheme in April, which granted foreign purchasers a one-year residence visa if they spent €500,000 on a house. The scheme was blamed, in part, for causing the ongoing housing crisis in Spain that has led to anti-tourism protests by locals who have been priced out of the housing market.
A Harris Poll published in March found that 42% of Americans had considered relocating overseas to escape rising costs. And the numbers were particularly high among younger people polled, with 63% of Gen Z and 52% of Millennials thinking of fleeing the American Dream.
Almost half were motivated by dissatisfaction with the political leadership (48%). Minority groups also felt their rights were under threat.
“The American Dream is evolving into the Expat Dream,” said Libby Rodney, chief strategy officer at The Harris Poll. “Following the election, Americans across the political spectrum are re-evaluating their future in the US.
“As social media fills with stories of Americans building high-quality lives abroad, more people are getting curious. They’re not just imagining greener pastures – they’re actively exploring new countries.”
Adrian Addison is a journalist living in Barcelona
