Kelly Brook has said she is worried about the current state of the US and her younger family members who live there.
The former model and actor, who used to live in the US during her twenties, described the country as a “cause for concern”.
She said: “It was always such an amazing place – to go from England, to go to LA and make TV shows and films and live in the sunshine and go to the beach at weekends and just live this healthy, gorgeous lifestyle, it was always incredible.
“But America’s a weird place at the minute,” she told Metro. “I don’t quite know how I feel about it. Maybe it was always a weird place but I was young and didn’t see it so much.
“But there are certain things that are going on there at the moment that just don’t sit well with me and it’s not really a place that I want to dedicate a huge amount of time to, to be honest. I’m very much a European woman and I’m proud to be.”
The 42-year-old revealed that she had nieces and nephews who were in school in the US, something she described as “very much a cause for concern”.
She added: “I love America and I love what it’s given me over the years but I just feel really sad for my American friends at the minute. There’s lots of things there that are not quite right and maybe never will be – and maybe they never were ever right and I just didn’t see it as much.
“But as you get older, your priorities change and you don’t think so much about yourself, you think about the future, you think about the next generation,” she said.
The US has been criticised for a number of domestic issues recently, including the controversial decision to overturn the Roe v Wade abortion ruling, and the country’s unprecedentedly high rates of gun violence
According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have already been more than 300 mass shootings across the US in 2022 alone.
In 2020, the most recent year for which figures are available, there were 19,384 gun murders, the most since at least 1968.
And a 2019 survey by the American Psychological Association (APA) found that nearly a third of US adults said they can’t go anywhere without worrying about being the victim of a mass shooting.
Nearly a quarter said they have changed how they live to avoid mass shootings, sometimes avoiding public events, malls and movie theatres.
Earlier this week, US President Joe Biden asked US citizens affected by gun violence to text him about their experiences for an upcoming speech to mark the passing of new gun control legislation.
“If it’s okay with you, I may share your story,” he said.
