New Year, NEW LIFE
AFTER ANOTHER ROMANTIC SETBACK, THE ACTRESS HAS MOVED WEST WITH HER DAUGHTER IN SEARCH OF A NEW BEGINNING
She’s happy to be living closer to her son Jack, an actor who stars in the streaming superhero series, The Boys.
She insists she’s “always been a New Yorker at heart,” but Meg Ryan can’t hide the fact that she’s absolutely loving her new life in Montecito, Calif. Since moving into her just over $5 million home in the tony seaside enclave last year, Meg, 59, feels invigorated by her new surroundings. “She missed the warm weather and the laid-back, slower pace,” says a friend of the star. “And she wanted a change.”
Meg is no stranger to shaking things up. After a decade of rom-com hits like 1989’s When Harry Met Sally… made her a star, she decided to challenge her good-girl image with a sexy role in 2003’s erotic thriller In the
Cut. The movie was a flop, but Meg has no regrets. “I liked doing [it],” she says.
The actress is just as philosophical when it comes to her love life. In 2019, she broke off her engagement to rocker John Mellencamp, 69, with whom she had an on-again, off-again relationship since 2011. Although it didn’t work out, Meg and John are “perfectly cordial and fine with each other,” says the pal, who adds that Meg’s recently dipped her toe back into the dating pool — albeit virtually. “A mutual friend set it up. The guy was her age, and they hit it off, but I’m not sure if they’re still talking. Virtual dating isn’t really her thing.”
FAMILY FIRST
Lately, Meg has been busy writing a new romantic comedy that she hopes to direct. “You feel like you’re jinxing it if you’re talking about it,” she says with a laugh. However, her greatest priority remains her kids: son Jack, 28, an LAbased actor from her first marriage to Dennis Quaid, and her adopted daughter, Daisy, 15. “What I’m ambitious for in the 12 hours a day that I’m awake is my kids’ happiness,” Meg says. “I just am. I’m either figuring out how to provide for them, figuring out how to say it right, figuring out all those mom things. I want them to be happy. And today I’m happy, too.”
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