Grey’s Anatomy star Kate Walsh trades Hollywood for Perth after falling in love with Aussie farmer

TV legend Kate Walsh has revealed why she permanently traded her life in Hollywood for a quiet Perth suburb after falling in love with an Aussie farmer.

The Grey’s Anatomy actress, who built a $30m fortune earning a reported $250,000 per episode, met farmer Andrew Nixon in 2020 shortly before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We met, as one does, on a NatGeo expedition to Antarctica,” she previously revealed in an interview.

The couple got engaged soon after, with the Hollywood icon letting the news slip during an Instagram Live with her longtime friend and Private Practice co-star Amy Brenneman in October 2022.

The newly engaged couple would go on to settle down in a single-storey beachside home in Cottesloe, with the 58-year-old revealing in a recent interview with news.com.au, that she’d completely fallen in love with the quieter lifestyle Perth had to offer.

“I really love Western Australia … I think nature here eclipses everything,” she told the publication.

“I like the slowness. It’s really good for me. And then you go back overseas and you’re like, ‘Oh my god. People are insane’.”

“I feel very fortunate I can pop back to LA, go to work, and then come back here and live my best life,” she continued.

The dramatic shift in career and living arrangement follows the star’s major health scare in 2015, when Walsh was diagnosed with a brain tumour at the age of 48.

The diagnosis prompted the Emily in Paris and 13 Reasons Why actress to re-evaluate her high-pressure life in the States.

“I needed my life to be a lot more balanced,” she continued.

“I think a lot of people can relate, whether it’s a health crisis or a loss … you’re like, ‘OK, I’m still here. Part two.’”