TV star Michael Barrymore has reportedly bought a £350k bungalow in Devon after ‘giving up’ on Barcelona retirement dream just months after heading to Spain to look for a new home
Michael Barrymore‘s new home in Devon has been revealed as a humble £350,000 bungalow. The star reportedly bought it after choosing not to pursue his dreams of retiring in Spain, just months after announcing he was heading out to live in Barcelona, as he clashed with the city’s tourism protestors.
The new home in the south of Devon is a wood clad bungalow styled like a beach house. The kitchen features exposed beams and high windows, allowing a lot of light to bounce off the white walls. It’s a short walk from the beach, but if Barrymore wants to enjoy the sun from his home, there is a decking and a garden that the property description says is a “great space to entertain or simply relax”.
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According to the Daily Mail, the property is very private thanks to a stone wall, but he has already visited neighbours to introduce himself. Neighbours told the publication: “We met him when he first moved in. He seems a lovely chap. It’s a bit surprising to have somebody you used to watch on telly living around the corner but he seems to be making friends and he’s very welcome.”
Barrymore, who was one of the biggest names on television in the 1990s, bought the home after previously saying that he was moving to Barcelona. Back in November, the star shared snippets of his new life in the Spanish city, but anti-tourism activists there did not take kindly to him.
One group, called Guiris Go Home, used one of his videos, where Barrymore walked past the Sagrada Familia, and wrote over the top: “Expats go home”.
Barrymore has been documenting his move to Devon on TikTok too and recently opened up about how he felt about the move. Before he made the move, he said in one video, whilst talking to his dog, Lara: “I’m a f***ing mess, so homesick, I’ve never experienced it before.
“I feel insecure, I’m just looking at negatives all of the time because of the way I feel. I can’t stand self pity and what do I do! Self pity. I’ve been doing it for f***ing ages. I’m tired, I feel so unprepared and thinking we can’t do this.”
Reflecting on his Spain U-turn after motoring back to the UK in the same car he drove down to Barcelona in, the former household name said: “I’ve spent the last three days driving back through the middle of France and we’re doing okay now. But the last week and at the weekend I wasn’t in a good place at all.
“My mental health really took a battering and really debilitated me which I didn’t expect at all. And I felt so down about giving up on moving to Barcelona, I felt like I let so many people down.”
Saying he needed to get back to some “normality and familiarity to help his mind settle” and had reached a point where he knew he had to return to London and “get some help”, he added: “I’ve decided what I’m going to do instead now is house-hunt from the comfort of my sofa with the iPad and view the houses virtually. Then I’m going to assess if I want to be six months in London and six months in Barcelona, which might work easier for us, but who knows. What I won’t be doing is rushing into it again without a real plan.”
The 73-year-old was a household name over twenty years ago, but he was axed from TV after the 2001 death of Stuart Lubbock in the swimming pool of his Essex home. Despite years of investigation, no-one has ever been charged over Stuart Lubbock’s death.
A post-mortem examination showed the 31-year-old butcher had suffered severe internal injuries, suggesting sexual assault, and police continue to believe he was raped and murdered.
Barrymore’s TV career ended virtually overnight following Stuart’s death. He was arrested in 2007 along with two other men but released without charge. He has always denied any wrongdoing, and said in 2020 following a Channel 4 documentary: “I have had nothing to do with this whatsoever and yet I keep getting bashed and bullied by the media.”
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