Included in the wreckage are luxury homes owned by Hollywood stars, who grieved and commiserated like anyone else, albeit in public. Here’s what we know about the most rich and famous of the fires’ victims.
Anthony Hopkins
Images published by the Daily Mail, People and TMZ reportedly show the Oscar-winning actor’s colonial home in the Pacific Palisades reduced to rubble.
According to the Daily Mail, this is not the first time the 87-year-old has suffered the loss of a home. Hopkins lost his London home to a fire in 2000, and his Palisades home narrowly escaped the Woolsey Fire in 2018, which destroyed his neighbour’s property.
A house is engulfed in flames as the Palisades Fire burns along Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, Los Angeles, on January 8. Photo / AFP
Mel Gibson
The Mad Max actor lost the Malibu home he lived in for over a decade in the Palisades fire, he revealed in a phone interview with NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas, calling the experience “devastating” and describing the neighbourhood as “completely toasted”.
Gibson said he was in Austin recording the Joe Rogan podcast during the blaze. “I thought, ‘I wonder if my place is still there’,” he told Vargas. “But when I got home, sure enough, it wasn’t there … and I said to myself, ‘Well, at least I haven’t got any of those pesky plumbing problems anymore’.”
Gibson’s wife, Rosalind Ross, and their son, Lars, were able to get to safety, and he added that all his chickens were safe. He’d lost photographs, files and memories but said he was grateful for the generosity of everyone around him.
“Obviously, it’s kind of devastating. It’s emotional,” Gibson told Vargas, while also criticising California Governor Gavin Newsom. “I had my stuff there, and it’s all like, I’ve been relieved from the burden of my stuff, because it’s all in cinders.”
A house the actor inherited from his late parents burned down in the Palisades fire, a representative for Bridges told the Hollywood Reporter.
Known for The Big Lebowski and The Old Man among other projects, Bridges had been sharing the house with his wife, Susan Geston, and had battled and beaten a lymphoma diagnosis there in 2020 and 2021.
Candy Spelling
The Broadway producer, widow of 90210 producer Aaron Spelling and mother of Tori Spelling, has lost the Malibu home she shared with her husband for 50 years, People reported. Spelling was staying in Beverly Hills while the Malibu beachfront property was under construction.
The house was 743sq m and had seven bedrooms, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal in 2019, when Spelling listed the property for sale for US$23 million ($41.3m).
Diane Warren
The songwriter posted on Instagram that she lost the beach house she has had for 30 years, but that all the animals at a rescue ranch she owns in Malibu are safe.
In her post, Warren showed the last photograph she’d taken of a rock on the beach behind her home, adding, “There’s a rainbow shining on it which I’m taking as a sign of hope for all creatures who have been affected by this tragedy”.
Paris Hilton
Hilton said on social media that she learned her home in Malibu had been destroyed by fires while watching the news. She said it was the home where her son, Phoenix, “took his first steps”.
“To know so many are waking up today without the place they called home is truly heartbreaking,” she said.
Hilton purchased a mid-century, 278sq m beach house in the area for more than US$8m in 2021, according to celebrity and real estate news outlets.
A news clip Hilton shared on social media after the fire showed buildings along the same road burned down to the frames.
Heartbroken beyond words 💔 Sitting with my family, watching the news, and seeing our home in Malibu burn to the ground on live TV is something no one should ever have to experience.😢 This home was where we built so many precious memories. It’s where Phoenix took his first steps… pic.twitter.com/aeJAgJrymA
Crystal said in a statement to multiple outlets that he and his wife, Janice, lost the home that they had been living in for 45 years.
“We raised our children and grandchildren here. Every inch of our house was filled with love. Beautiful memories that can’t be taken away. We are heartbroken of course but with the love of our children and friends we will get through this,” he said.
Crystal gushed about his neighbourhood at an event in 2018, when he and Janice were named honorary mayors of the community. “We moved here in ’79, with a 2- and 7-year-old,” he said. “It was a wonderful place for family, and it’s always remained that for us. Now we bring our grandchildren here.”
Mandy Moore
In a post on Instagram, Moore said she and others within the Altadena neighbourhood were affected by the fire. Her post included videos of smoke-filled skies and charred buildings.
“This is Altadena. Levelled,” she wrote on Instagram. “My sweet home. I am devastated and gutted for those of us who’ve lost so much. I’m absolutely numb.
“Honestly, I’m in shock and feeling numb for all so many have lost, including my family. My children’s school is gone,” she wrote. “Our favourite restaurants, levelled. So many friends and loved ones have lost everything too.”
Moore and her now-husband, Taylor Goldsmith, searched for a year before buying a home in the area, Architectural Digest wrote in 2018, describing it as “the perfect spot to begin their life together, high atop a Pasadena hill, in a classic 1950s home with sweeping vistas of the San Gabriel mountains and valley”.
Cary Elwes
The Princess Bride star said on social media that his home had burned down from the Palisades fire. “Sadly, we did lose our home but we are grateful to have survived this truly devastating fire,” he said.
“Our hearts go out to all the families impacted by this tragic event,” he added before sending gratitude to first responders.
Cameron Mathison
All My Children star Mathison said on Instagram that his home had been destroyed. In the video clip, he appears to walk around the charred remains where his house once stood.
Pratt and Montag, married stars of The Hills reality TV show, are mourning the loss of their home and possessions in the wake of the fires.
Pratt posted on Snapchat that he and his family fled after seeing they needed to evacuate and that their home burned down to the ground. He also said that he didn’t have many clothes with him after evacuating and probably lost his “designer clothes” in the fire.
In a series of Snapchat posts, Montag added that their family left safely but that they were feeling homesick and missing their home. She later shared a video in which she and her child travelled to Target to pick out some new bedding materials and toys.
James Woods
In a teary-eyed interview with CNN, Woods struggled to comprehend the gravity of his house burning down. “One day you’re swimming in the pool, and the next day it’s all gone,” he said.
Woods said he also helped his 94-year-old neighbour escape to safety. “There was so much chaos, it was like an inferno. Every house was on fire around us,” he said.
Adam Brody and Leighton Meester
Several media outlets, including NBC News, circulated photos and video of a destroyed Pacific Palisades home reportedly belonging to married Hollywood actors Adam Brody and Leighton Meester.
Ricki Lake
The former talk show host announced on Instagram that her Malibu “dream home”, where she married her husband, Ross Burningham, was destroyed in the fires.
“It’s all gone,” she wrote in a post accompanied by old photos of her standing in her garden and lounging by her pool.
“It was our heaven on earth. The place where we planned to grow old together. We never took our heavenly spot on the bluff overlooking our beloved Malibu for granted, not even for one second.”
In an Instagram post, the singer revealed her home “burned down to the ground”. She added that she and her children were safe and “starting from scratch. My heart is so heavy,” she wrote.
Anna Faris
The actor’s home was destroyed in the Palisades fire, her representative told the Hollywood Reporter, while confirming Faris and her family are safe.
Melissa Rivers
TV personality Melissa Rivers said she managed to save identification documents and a few precious items from her home before it was destroyed in the wildfires.
“I grabbed my mom’s Emmy, a photo of my dad and a drawing that my mother had done of me and my son,” she told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.
Her mother, the late Joan Rivers, won a Daytime Emmy in 1990 for Outstanding Talk Show Host. “That’s it, that’s the end of everything that belonged to my family and the history of it.”
