Adam Carolla says Angelenos are fleeing L.A. for ‘anywhere’

Comedian Adam Carolla says Los Angeles has flipped from a city nobody left to one residents are abandoning for anywhere else, describing the shift as evidence of the city’s decline.

Mr. Carolla made the remarks Tuesday on the Hang Out with Sean Hannity podcast, recalling a time when leaving the city was almost unheard of. Back then, he said, the only people who left were retirees moving to Hawaii or families relocating for a parent’s job.

“Now, people leave L.A., and you go, ’Where are you going?’ And they go, ’Anywhere,’” he said.

Mr. Carolla said he once found it baffling that anyone would trade Los Angeles for somewhere like Tennessee, a reaction he said reflected how rare it was for longtime residents to move away at all. He called the newer pattern of departures “a bad sign,” and said that in his view, many people leaving now are doing so out of necessity rather than choice — a shift he attributed to frustration with the city rather than the job transfers or retirements that once drove past departures.

The comedian has repeatedly criticized California’s Democratic leadership over the state’s homelessness crisis and wildfires, taking aim at both Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. Mr. Newsom has since acknowledged that Democrats are “perceived, rightfully, as too slow, weak, and ineffective” on issues like homelessness, while Ms. Bass, who set a goal of ending street homelessness in the city by 2026, has admitted that “we need to end the failed policies of the past” after falling well short of that target.

Mr. Carolla signaled plans to leave California himself as far back as 2021, saying he intended to make the move once his children finished high school.