- Cameron Diaz says she spent her 10-year break from acting “trying to stay alive just like every other mother.”
- But she’s set to make a return to Hollywood in the Netflix movie “Back in Action.”
- Diaz joins a long list of celebrities — like Tom Brady — who have unretired.
Cameron Diaz was busy being a mother during her 10-year break from making movies.
In a video uploaded onto the “Still Watching Netflix” channel on YouTube, which goes behind the scenes on Netflix shows, Diaz spoke about what she had been up to during her hiatus.
“I was not keeping up with any kind of training,” Diaz, 52, said. “I did nothing public.”
The actor — known for films such as “Charlie’s Angel” and “Vanilla Sky” — added that she “said no to everything,” although she did start a wine company.
“That was what I was putting most of my focus on, if I was doing anything other than just sort of being a mom and living my day-to-day,” Diaz said. “And that was pretty much it. I’m just trying to stay alive just like every other mother. I’m just trying to keep it going.”
Diaz married Benji Madden of the rock band Good Charlotte in 2015. They welcomed their daughter, Raddix, in 2019 and their son, Cardinal, in 2024.
In an Entertainment Weekly interview in 2018, Diaz said she was “semi-retired” as an actor, before clarifying she was “actually retired.” Per her IMDB page, her last role was in 2014’s “Annie.”
During Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit last year, Diaz shared that her decision to stop acting was something she “had to do.”
“It felt like something I had to do to reclaim my own life. And I just really didn’t care about anything else. Nobody’s opinion, nobody’s success, no one’s offer, no one’s anything could change my mind about my decision of taking care of myself and building the life that I really wanted to have,” Diaz said. “It really comes to: What are you passionate about? For me, it was to build my family.”
Diaz is set to return to acting in the Netflix movie “Back in Action,” which premieres January 17 and also stars Jamie Foxx.
She joins a long list of celebrities who have unretired — most notably, Tom Brady.
Six weeks after retiring from the NFL in 2022, Brady announced he was unretiring in a post on X.
“I’m coming back for my 23rd season in Tampa,” Brady wrote. “Unfinished business. LFG.”
More recently, in December, Jim Carrey, 62, walked back on his comments about coming out of retirement because he was strapped for cash.
“I said I’d like to retire, but I think I was talking more about power-resting. Because as soon as a good idea comes your way, or a group of people that you really enjoyed working with and stuff, it just — things tend to change,” Carrey told Comicbook.com.
A representative for Diaz did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider outside regular hours.
