Meg Ryan Ditches Hollywood, Opts For Quiet New York Life

Meg Ryan has left the glitz and glamour of Hollywood behind.

The actress, once an A-lister and a top draw in romantic comedies, has decided to leave that lifestyle behind and move to New York City.

Friends say the move wasn’t exactly a retreat from show business, but more of a change of scenery.

“Living in New York makes you different,” Ryan’s friend, writer Delia Ephron, told People magazine. “Los Angeles is just about movies. New York is about so much more than that, and so is Meg.”

Delia’s sister, the late Nora Ephron, directed Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail.

At the time, Meg Ryan was box office gold. Her on-screen chemistry with Tom Hanks made for two of the most popular and top-grossing romantic comedies of the 1990s.

But after Ryan’s 10-year marriage to Dennis Quaid fell apart in 2000 amid rumors that both had been unfaithful, Ryan stepped back from the spotlight.

“My time as a scarlet woman was really interesting. As painful as it was, it was also incredible liberating. Now I was utterly free. I didn’t have to care about what people thought,” she said InStyle Magazine in 2008. “I have gotten to do what I guess I secretly wanted to do. Be totally under the radar and live my life.”

Ryan has still done some acting work. In 2009 she appeared on Curb Your Enthusiasm, and has appeared on the web series Web Therapy as Karen Sharpe.

Meg Ryan has now been spending her time focusing on her 8-year-old daughter Daisy and her boyfriend, rocker John Mellencamp. Ryan says she spends her days “trying not to be recognized.”