’90s Star Tom Green Reveals the Real Reason He Left L.A. For Good

Comedian and actor Tom Green was once a fixture in ’90s comedies. Now, he’s opening up about his decision to leave Hollywood behind.

“I”m not really a Hollywood guy,” Green, 53, said in a recent interview with The New York Times published on Saturday, January 25. “I started to feel like I wasn’t being true to my authentic self.”

In 2021, Green left Hollywood for Canada — a decision he told the Times was potentially surprising to his Y2K-era fans.

“People are probably going to be surprised that I’m not, like, completely crazy,” he admitted. Green went on to describe the move and his new life — depicted in a new, four-episode reality series Tom Green Country on Amazon Prime Video — as a “wholesome heartwarming thing.”

“I have a close relationship with my family, that I love animals, that I enjoy doing a lot of things that a great many people in the world enjoy doing, like getting out into the woods,” he added. Green lives in Canada with his rescue dog, Charley, and his fiancée, Amanda Nelson.

Green will also debut a new stand-up special I Got a Mule! this month. His new documentary, This Is the Tom Green Documentary, debuted Friday, January 24.

Glenn Humplik, Green’s collaborator on The Tom Green Show, told the Times that the comedian is “actually really reserved usually and serious,” which might also come as a surprise from those who remember him from his 1990s MTV series.

“He’s very analytical about every single comedy bit and thing that he does. It’s not just a primitive demonstration,” Humplik added. “He understands why something is funny or not. And it goes beyond just comedy — about life. He really reflects on things a lot. Maybe too much sometimes.”

Green started his stand-up career as a teenager, later joining rap group called Organized Rhyme. The time period influenced his MTV series, Humplik added, because when you’re in a certain scene, “you have a good understanding of the kind of rebel attitude and the sort of anarchy-style behavior at that age, and that sensibility definitely landed itself into the show.”

These days, Green hopes to show audiences that he’s a lot smarter than the person he played on TV. “The thing that I was maybe miscalculating was that my show was so outrageous that it probably would have been more interesting for me to have gone on the show and just sat back like this and talk and be myself,” he told the Times.

I Got a Mule! premieres on Amazon Prime Video on January 28. Tom Green Country debuts on the same platform two days later on January 30.