Trending:
- Kevin Bacon revealed that following his Footloose fame, he wanted to get away from the overwhelming public exposure
- The star moved to rural Connecticut to be “a guy with a dog and live alone”
- Kyra Sedgwick eventually convinced him to move to New York City with their two children, Sosie and Travis
Even though he’s a city slicker now, in his mind, Kevin Bacon was meant for the country life.
During the Thursday, April 3 episode of Mythical Kitchen’s Last Meals, the actor, 66, explained to host, Josh Scherer (also known as Mythical Chef Josh on the show) why he wanted to live alone on a farm with a dog after the release of the 1984 film Footloose catapulted him to fame.
“I think I had gone through the intensity of Footloose, and exploding onto a kind of national kind of stardom, and then trying to deal with that,” he says, adding that it felt like “zero to 60.”
Between the public exposure, frequent travel, and being in a romantic relationship he says was nearing its end, the Philadelphia native found himself craving solitude.
“I just thought to myself, ‘I’ll just be a guy with a dog and live alone. I don’t need anything. I don’t need anybody,’” he recalls. He went on to reference The Gatlin Brothers’ 2007 song “Chop Wood and Carry Water,” and says, “It might sound corny… but I like to be out there, chopping wood.”
He continued living his country life in western Connecticut when he met and later married his wife of 37 years, Kyra Sedgwick. But she wasn’t totally on board with his rural fantasy.
The couple were living in a “funky, small, rundown farmhouse,” he says. “For a while, quite a few years actually, she sort of folded into that, and we kind of became that together. And we lived in this little place, and I chopped the wood, and when we weren’t working, she brought a dog into the mix. So it was us — and [our dogs] Jane and Tybalt.”
However, after a few years, the Brooklyn Nine-Nine alum was over the farm life. “She said, ‘This is horrible. I want to go out to lunch. I want to go to the movies or the theater. I want to shop in the Village,’” Bacon recalls.
The actor, who shares two children with Sedgwick — Travis, 35, and Sosa, 33 — explains that as a native New Yorker — born and raised in Manhattan — the countryside life was not going to work for Sedgwick. The decision about where to live was “the biggest fight we’ve ever had in our lives,” he reveals.
Sedgwick was adamant about taking Travis, who was six at the time, out of school, moving back to New York and into an apartment where they could all live. Bacon admits that during this time — “post-Footloose, pre-Tremors,” Scherer clarifies — their financial situation was not ideal for such a costly move, however, the couple made it work.
“It was the greatest thing we ever did,” Bacon confesses in hindsight. “She was so right. Raising kids in Manhattan was the best idea.”
He goes on to add, “I did get work. All these things that I was afraid of not happening, happened — and she was right. You know, right again.”
Tune in to the full episode of “Last Meals” with Kevin Bacon on Mythical Kitchen’s YouTube channel on Thursday, April 3, at 6:00 AM ET.
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