Donald Trump’s America is really not going down well with several celebrities and numerous wealthy citizens. As reported by the Daily Mail, the currently “unstable” political landscape in the U.S. is increasingly leading some VIP’s to leave the country to live overseas.
Many of these have decided to move to the most exclusive areas of London, such as Notting Hill, Kensington and Hampstead. This phenomenon, dubbed as the “Donald Dash” effect, has been confirmed by the local Home Office, whose data revealed that applications for British citizenship soared in the last quarter of 2024, up 40 percent year-on-year.
Celebrities who have “fled” America to the UK include Ellen DeGeneres and her wife Portia de Rossi, actresses America Ferrera and Minnie Driver, fashion designer Tom Ford, and Hollywood spouses Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes.
According to insiders, it is quite likely that over the next four years, with the MAGA leader in the White House, the number of American citizens intent on moving to the UK will continue to soar.
“I have noticed in the last year, I’m dealing with 10 to 15 Americans a week, whereas usually it is one or two”, said a real estate agent in Notting Hill, one of the most popular neighborhoods among Americans who decide to reside in England, “I’m working with 70 people actively now, at least 50 of them are American”.
The fear of living in Trump’s America has even led some octogenarians to consider moving to the UK. Steven Hyman, 84, a partner in the New York law firm McLaughlin & Stern, recently discovered that he was entitled to a British passport because of his father’s Scottish ancestry, which prompted him and his wife Mimi, 83, to consider leaving the States.
“What is happening here is almost indescribable compared to what this country has always stood for and believed in, so I guess having a backup plan is not a bad idea,” Hyman said.
This new wave of wealthy U.S. citizens settling in the British capital has been welcomed by local merchants, who expect that the newcomers with deep pockets are likely to spend significant sums of money at local businesses.
Overall, applications for British citizenship increased by 6 percent last year to a record 251,000.
