Yahoo Lifestyle 26 American Celebs You Probably Didn't Know Were Born Outside Of The US
From Ana de Armas to Rihanna, there are plenty of Hollywood icons who've moved to the US from other countries. However, there are also plenty of other celebs who moved to the US as children or who were born to American parents living abroad.
Here are 26 American celebs you may not know were born outside the US:
1.Julia Fox was born to an Italian mom and an American dad in Milan, Italy on February 2, 1990. Her parents broke up when she was a child, and until she was 6, she lived with her grandfather in the "very quaint, very sheltered" town of Sirano. However, when her dad got an apartment in New York City, she went to live with him.
She told Rolling Stone, "The first thing he did when I moved to America is he brought me to the corner of our apartment building, and he pointed to the street signs, and he was like, 'This is where you live. So whatever happens, just remember to come back here.' And I was like, 'OK.' Then he sent me off into the world."
As a teenager, she lived between the US and Italy, so when she moved out with her boyfriend at 15, her family didn't notice for three weeks.
She said, "Then I had to hide. There were 'missing' posters all over the city."
After her boyfriend, who was a drug dealer, was sent to jail, she moved in with one of her friends.
2.Lily Collins was born to an American mother and a British father — famous musician Phil Collins — in Guildford, Surrey, England on March 18, 1989. Following her parents' divorce when she was 6, Lily and her mom relocated to Los Angeles, California.
When she moved, she worked hard to lose her British accent, which she later somewhat regretted as an adult.
On The Kelly Clarkson Show, she said, "Everyone made fun of me 'cause it's such a formidable age at the age of, like, 5 or 6 when they're like, 'Wait, you can't say your Rs?' And so I used to watch movies to replicate accents."
3.Johnny Galecki was born to American parents in Bree, Belgium on April 30, 1975. At the time, his dad was stationed there in the Air Force.
The family moved to Chicago, Illinois when he was 3. By the time he was 14, all of them had relocated to Los Angeles for Johnny's career, but they were homesick, so after only 10 months in California, they moved back to Chicago.
However, Johnny was still under contract for the show American Dreamer, so he lived alone in a studio apartment in LA.
4.The Vampire Diaries actor Kat Graham was born to a Liberian father and a Russian Jewish mother in Geneva, Switzerland on September 5, 1989. Her paternal grandfather was a Liberian ambassador to Switzerland, and her parents moved there so her dad could work for him as a UN journalist. When Kat was 5, her parents divorced, and she and her mom moved to Los Angeles.
She told Schön! Magazine, "Switzerland is incredibly special to me. It's where my journey began, and the memories of growing up there still warm my heart. The beauty of Switzerland and its rich culture continue to inspire me. Plus, it's the birthplace of the UN — and me!"
5.Dylan and Cole Sprouse were born in Arezzo, Italy on August 4, 1992. At the time, their American parents were teachers at what Cole described as a "school slash cult" in Tuscany.
On Call Her Daddy, Cole said, "My father was teaching physical education, and my mother was an art teacher. And we were just born out there 'cause it was romantic and sexy."
The Sprouse family moved to Switzerland briefly after the boys were born. When they were four months old, the family relocated to Long Beach, California.
6.Camila Cabello was born to a Cuban mom and a Mexican dad in Havana, Cuba on March 3, 1997. They lived between Cuba and Mexico until, while Camila was 6, she and her mom moved to Miami. Her dad joined them a year and a half later.
Camila told PopSugar, "Why were we packing up our stuff? Why was my grandma hugging me tighter than usual? Where were we going? 'We're going to Disney World!' That's what my Mom told me when we were crossing the border. She packed a little backpack with my Winnie the Pooh journal and my doll, and we crossed the border from Mexico to the US, seeing my Dad become an ant in the distance as he stayed behind.
...Little me and my mamá ended up on a Greyhound bus to Miami that took 36 hours — that's where I have my most vivid memories...We got to Miami and moved into my grandpa's colleague's house who later became my godmother. My mom was a very good architect in Cuba, but when she came to America none of the degrees she earned in Cuba counted, so to make enough to keep us fed and put me into school she began stacking shoes in Marshalls and going to school at night to take courses in English, all while taking me to and from school and helping me with my homework all by herself, alone in a strange country. I can't imagine how frustrating it must have been for her to have worked her whole life in architecture and then have it all erased when she came here."
She said that two older Cuban women her mom met at work put her in touch with their brother, an architect who "needed someone who worked in Autocad, a complicated architectural computer program." Her mom didn't know Autocrad, but she said she did, taught herself how to use it in a week, and made enough money to get an apartment.
7.Amy Adams was born in Aviano, Italy, on August 20, 1974. Her family was living in Italy because her father was stationed there.
8.Prison Break actor Wentworth Miller was born to American parents in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, England on June 2, 1972. At the time, his father was a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford. The family moved to Brooklyn when he was a year old.
He told EveryJoe, "On a website, someone wrote, 'I just found out that Wentworth Miller's a Brit. I guess that explains his crap American accent.' I was a baby when I moved [to the US]! This is my accent. This is how I talk. But they found out that I was a dual citizen, because I was born there, so I'm a dual citizen with the UK, and I guess assumed that the way I talk on the show is some kind of put-on American accent, but it's not obviously."
9.Bruce Willis was born in Idar-Oberstein, Germany on March 19, 1955. His mother was German, and his dad was an American soldier stationed at the Strasbourg Army barracks.
10.Pedro Pascal was born in Santiago, Chile on April 2, 1975. His father, a fertility doctor, and his mother, a child psychologist, fled the country with their children and sought political asylum when Pedro was 9 months old.
His parents became political refugees after joining the opposition movement against Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship.
Pedro told Orange Coast magazine, "It was the mid-'70s, and my parents were young and liberal. It was a dangerous time, and they were lucky they got out with their lives."
Initially, they went to Denmark, then they moved to San Antonio, Texas.
When Pedro was 11, they relocated to Newport Beach, California.
11.Food Network's Giada De Laurentiis was born in Rome, Italy on August 22, 1970. Her family moved to California — where her grandfather Dino De Laurentiis, the movie producer who brought Italian film to the American mainstream, lived — when she was 7.
She told Business Insider, "My family takes their culture very seriously, so even when we moved to the US, we still lived very Italian lives. We spoke Italian at home, we only ate Italian food — and let me tell you, back in the late '70s and early '80s, people were not as proud of their unique heritage as they are now...My different name and Italian food that I brought to school were not seen as cool by my classmates at the time."
12.J. Cole was born to American parents in Frankfurt, Germany on January 28, 1985. His father was stationed there with the Army.
After his parents divorced, his mother moved with both of her sons to Fayetteville, North Carolina, where they grew up.
13.Emily Ratajkowski was born to American parents in London, England on June 7, 1991. Her mom was teaching there, and her dad was working as an artist.
They lived in the UK until Emily was 5, then moved to Encinitas, which is a small surf town outside of San Diego, California.
Growing up, Emily also spent time in southwest Ireland, where her dad was represented by a gallery, and Mallorca, Spain, where he rebuilt a ruin with a friend.
14.Sebastian Stan was born in Constanța, Romania on August 13, 1982. When he was 8, his mother's work as a pianist took them to Vienna, Austria, where he also began his acting career.
When Sebastian was 12, his mom married an American headmaster, so they moved to Rockland County, New York.
He told Broadway.com, "When you're thrown into something so young, you don't think about it too much. I was an only child, so it took me a while to form friends because my stepdad was the headmaster, and I had an accent for a while, but it was still early, and you just sort of suck in everything at that age."
15.Lana Condor was born in Cần Thơ, Vietnam on May 11, 1997. When she was 4 months old, she was adopted by an American mother and father, who moved her to Chicago, Illinois.
She told Elle, "My parents would dress us up in traditional Vietnamese clothing to go to school for heritage day. We have a Vietnamese nanny that my parents wanted [my brother and I] to have so we could stay in touch and know where we came from. They tried to have us eat Vietnamese food. Now, I love it... My parents tried their best to educate us on where we came from. The way that I grew up was that your experience is your experience. I think there's a misconception that all Asian American experiences are the same. My experiences with my family and the way they wanted me to know my culture are not the same as others."
Because of her dad's job, they moved around, so she lived on an island in Washington, in New York, and in Los Angeles.
16.Mischa Barton was born to an Irish mom and an English dad in London, England on January 24, 1986. When she was 5, they moved to New York because of her dad's work.
She told Hello, "People assume I'm from Orange County. Marissa [Cooper, her character on The O.C.] hasn't seen much outside her bubble, but I like people to discern that I'm an English-Irish girl who grew up in New York and moved around a lot with her dad's job."
17.Pretty Little Liars actor Sasha Pieterse was born in Johannesburg, South Africa on February 17, 1996. Her parents were professional acrobatic dancers who performed around the world before moving their family to Las Vegas, Nevada in 2000.
A few years later, they moved to Los Angeles. Sasha signed with an agent when she was 4 and a half.
18.13 Reasons Why actor Ross Butler was born to a Chinese Malaysian mom and an English Dutch dad in Singapore on May 17, 1990. He moved to the US at 4.
His mother raised him as a single parent in Fairfax, Virginia.
He told Mochi magazine, "I grew up around American kids, and I'm an American. I was raised in this culture. Telling that story isn't that hard. My mom brought her background of academic strictness, but that didn't define who I was. It's an attribute just like all white Americans have their own unique attributes. Growing up, I wish I had seen the stories I saw, just with Asian characters. I wish there was an Asian version of Tom Hanks, or an Asian American version of Ryan Gosling."
At 20, he moved to California, and at 21, he began pursuing acting.
19.Tia Mowry and Tamera Mowry-Housley were born in Gelhausen, Germany on July 6, 1978, because their mom and dad were both NCOs in the US Army.
At 2, they moved to Fort Hood, Texas, then at 8, they relocated to Honolulu, Hawaii. When they were 10, their mom took a 30-day leave from the Army and promised the girls that, if they could book a commercial during that time, she'd quit her job altogether and help them pursue acting.
Tia and Tamera booked a Chrysler commercial, so their mother left the military and moved the family to LA in 1989.
20.Natalie Portman was born to an American mom and an Israeli dad in Jerusalem, Israel on June 9, 1981. They moved to the US when she was 3.
The family settled in Syosset, Long Island, New York.
21.Oscar Isaac was born to a Guatemalan mom and a Cuban dad in Guatemala City, Guatemala on March 9, 1979. When he was 5 months old, the family moved to the US for his father's medical residencies.
They first moved to Baltimore then to New Orleans. When Oscar was 6, they settled in Miami, where he grew up.
22.Pretty Little Liars actor Ian Harding was born in Heidelberg, Germany on September 16, 1986. His parents were stationed there for about three years.
He told Ability magazine, "I only remember glimpses of it. I've been back to Heidelberg since, and it's very strange seeing the buildings and recognizing them, or being able to go down the street, saying something like, 'We're going to turn here, and there's a grocery store.' It's funny that this place feels somewhat familiar and yet so foreign at the same time."
After his family moved back to the US, he grew up in northern Virginia.
23.Rose McGowan was born in Florence, Italy on September 5, 1973. Her American parents were part of the Italian chapter of the Children of God, a polygamous cult.
When Rose was 9, her father escaped the cult with one of his two wives and all three of his children.
She told People, "I remember running through a cornfield in thunder and lightning, holding my dad's hand and running as fast as I could to keep up with him. We hid in an old stone house and had to boil pots of hot water to take baths. [The cult] sent people to find us. I remember a man trying to break in with a hammer."
Eventually, they landed in Colorado. After a while, Rose's mom, who had stayed in Italy longer, moved to Oregon, so Rose was sent to live with her.
However, at 13, she ran away from home because of her "mean stepdad," but after experiencing homelessness for a year, she reunited with her father and moved in with him in Washington.
Then, at 15, she emancipated herself from her parents and moved to Hollywood.
24.It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia actor Glenn Howerton was born to American parents in Okinawa, Japan on April 13, 1976. His dad was in the Air Force.
When he was still a baby, they moved back to the US, living in both Arizona and New Mexico. However, when he was 3, they relocated to Felixstowe, England. Afterwards, they returned to the US and moved to Virginia, but then they moved to Seoul, South Korea for three years. Finally, they moved to Montgomery, Alabama, where Glenn grew up.
25.Dave Matthews was born in Johannesburg, South Africa on January 9, 1967. A few years later, the family relocated to Yorktown Heights, New York because his dad got a job as a physicist for IBM.
When Dave was 7, his family moved to Cambridge, England for a year before returning to New York.
When he was 10, his dad died, and his family moved home to South Africa. At 19, Dave got a job at the same IBM research center his dad had worked at and moved back to New York. The rest of his family moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, so after a year, he joined them.
26.And finally, Nicole Polizzi aka Snooki, was born in Santiago, Chile on November 23, 1987. She was adopted by American parents when she was 6 months old.
In a YouTube video, she said, "I was always meant to be with my adoptive parents, which I don't even, ew, I hate saying adoptive parents because they are my parents, it's weird. Even though my nationality is Chilean, I grew up Italian. So when people say to me, 'What's your nationality?' I say, 'I'm Chilean, but I grew up Italian.' I feel like I'm both."
She was raised in Marlboro, New York.
Are there any other celebs you were surprised to learn were born outside of the US? Let us know in the comments!
