Nineties stars who ditched Hollywood – from Fresh Prince actor's career switch to legend's surprise Loose Women cameo | The Sun

IN their heyday, they were some of the biggest stars in the movie industry. 

But these days, these superstars have ditched Hollywood for a life away from the glitz and glamour. 

This week, in a rare public sighting, Bridget Fonda, star of the Quentin Tarantino flick Jackie Brown, told paparazzi she had no plans to make a showbiz comeback.

The 59-year-old added: "I don't think so, it's too nice being a civilian."

And she's not alone. While some fellow 90s stars were pushed out of Hollywood after their career tanked, others willingly decided it was time to wrap it up.

Here, we take a look at some of the A-list heavyweights who turned their back on fame.

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Karyn Parsons

Karyn Parsons was Will Smith's ditsy and spoiled cousin Hilary Banks on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, a role that earned her millions of adoring fans.

Her character is said to have been the inspiration for other iconic roles including Dionne Davenport from Clueless and Girlfriends' Toni Childs.

When the show ended in 1996 after six years, Karyn tried her hands at other projects in the industry but none gave her the level of fame she experienced with The Fresh Prince.

After 2002, she completely retreated away from the limelight and decided to turn her attention to her non-profit organisation, Sweet Blackberry, which helps to document the stories of African Americans.

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Karyn, now 56, married director Alexandre Rockwell in 2003 and has two kids – she also has a new career as an author.

Jonathan Taylor Thomas

At the age of 10, he made his Hollywood debut with Home Improvement, the hit sitcom that also starred Tim Allen.

After that, Jonathan blew up and took on many iconic voice roles including a young Simba in The Lion King, and as Pinnochio in The Adventures of Pinocchio.

In the Noughties, he had small roles in 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, Veronica Mars, and Last Man Standing.

Today, the 41-year-old mostly stays away from the limelight and was seen walking his dogs in Los Angeles in 2021 – his first public appearance in eight years.

In 2013, he looked back on his time as a famous actor staying: "I never took the fame too seriously. It was a great period in my life, but it doesn’t define me.

"When I think back on the time, I look at it with a wink. I focus on the good moments I had, not that I was on a lot of magazine covers."

Little is known about Jonathan's life post-Hollywood, but he went to study philosophy and history at Harvard University and graduated from Columbia University in 2010.

Phoebe Cates

Phoebe rose to fame thanks to her role in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and earned more success in movies such as Gremlins, Drop Dead Fred, and Princess Caraboo.

During this time, Phoebe, who started out as a model and appeared on magazine covers, became a huge star and was the ultimate schoolboy crush.

In 1989, she married Oscar winner Kevin Kline and had two children with him. He told Playboy in 1998 that they had agreed to alternate their work commitments so one of them was always at home with the kids.

He added: "Whenever it’s been her slot to work, Phoebe has chosen to stay with the children."

She has now completely stepped away from the spotlight and focuses on her family and her boutique in New York called Blue Tree.

Phoebe, now 59, only makes rare red carpet appearances when accompanying her husband to award shows.

Rick Moranis

Prior to playing professor Wayne Szalinski in 1989's Honey I Shrunk The Kids, Rick Moranis was already a big star, having appeared in two Ghostbusters films, Little Shop Of Horrors and Star Wars parody Spaceballs.

But in 1991, two years after HISTK was released, the actor’s wife of five years Ann Belsky died from breast cancer.

Rick pulled away from public life to look after their two children and, apart from appearing in the film’s two sequels, he has rarely been seen onscreen.

He's since done voiceover work for the Brother Bear films, Muppets Tonight and The Goldbergs – and has released a total of three comedy music albums. 

Previously, Rick countered speculation that he had retired and insisted he was just "picky" about acting jobs.

In January, he was said to be working on a new HISTK sequel, named Shrunk, but no further news has been announced.

In 2020, CCTV captured a brutal assault on the actor in New York's plush Upper West Side, where he suffered injuries to his head, back and hip.

Alicia Silverstone

Alicia, 46, started her career as a video model, appearing in several Aerosmith music videos including Cryin' and Crazy.

She branched into mainstream acting with the coming-of-age movie Clueless, which catapulted her to dizzying heights of fame and established her as a teen idol.

But critics noted that her string of successes came to a screeching halt after she agreed to star in the ill-fated 1997 blockbuster Batman & Robin as Batgirl.

Subjected to cruel jabs about her appearance from fans, she decided to step away from the spotlight.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, she said: "My response was, 'Hell no.' I had no interest in being famous or maintaining any kind of fame.

"If you told me that acting meant I was going to be called fat and have to do things a certain way, then I was like, 'F off.'"

In 2005, she married musician Christopher Jarecki but divorced in 2018 – the couple share a son, Bear, who was born in 2011.

In recent times, she has become better known as an animal rights activist, while her unusual parenting style has raised eyebrows.

Last year, she was criticised by parenting experts after revealing she shares a bed with her 11-year-old son.

It came after she was slammed for sharing a video that showed her feeding her son chewed food from her mouth.

Hitting back at the criticism, she said: “I’m a natural mama, and I’m a loving mama. I believe in love, I believe in nature and our society is scared of nature and scared of love."

Geena Davies

After making her debut as April Page in 1982's Tootsie, Geena Davis went on to act in several high-profile movies and even won an Oscar for her work in The Accidental Tourist.

She starred in the huge hit Thelma and Louise, A League of Their Own, and The Long Kiss Goodnight.

But after that, Geena, 67, made the decision to take a long hiatus from Hollywood.

She didn't ditch the movie industry altogether – she set up The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, where she analyses data to prove the disparities between roles for men and women.

It aims to reduce inequality and the unfair stereotypes of women in the male-dominated industry – for her efforts, she was awarded another Oscar.

Last year, fans were stunned when the Beetlejuice star made a surprise appearance on Loose Women, looking like she'd barely aged a day.

She reveal she had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADD) as an adult, explaining: "I carried a huge burden of shame most of my life because I thought there was something wrong with me, a character flaw…I couldn't finish a lot of thing or start things.

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