Jillian Michaels is loving the “patriotism and Americana” that she has found in Wyoming after leaving her home state of California.
In June 2021, the 50-year-old fitness guru moved out of Los Angeles and relocated to Miami along with her wife, DeShanna Marie Minuto, and their kids, Lukensia, 14, and Phoenix, 12.
During an interview with Fox News Digital, Michaels, who recently teamed up with Bill Maher’s media company Club Random Studios to bring her “Keeping It Real” podcast to video, shared that she and Minuto were in the process of rebuilding a home in Wyoming. The wellness expert said she and her family plan to live there most of the time and explained what drew her to the Cowboy State.
“First of all, it’s gorgeous. Second of all, I don’t think you could be surrounded by nicer people,” she said. “They’re so lovely and cool. And it’s like there’s something about the Americana peace.”
She continued, “I know our country isn’t perfect. Don’t get me wrong, but I think it’s a pretty damn good place to live. All things considered, there are a lot of flaws. A lot of things I would change. I think we’ve lost being a democracy. I think we’ve become an oligarchy.”
“I could go down the list of the things that I find alarming,” Michaels added. “However, comparatively speaking, I’m so grateful to be here. The fact that I can point out those things just shows that it really is a pretty damn good country, and I’m pretty grateful to all the people who have served. So I can point out the things that are not great about the country.”
“You find that sort of patriotism and Americana in Wyoming, and I tend to love it. And I’m also a big outdoors person. Ride horses, go hiking. Love nature.”
WATCH: Jillian Michaels says she loves the ‘patriotism and Americana’ in Wyoming after leaving California
However, “The Biggest Loser” alum told Fox News Digital that she and her family will also have a home in the Sunshine State that they can retreat to during Wyoming’s colder seasons.
“I love Miami, and we’re gonna keep a little place there,” Michaels said. “Especially because I will need to escape nine months of winter.”
“It’s going to be like ‘Game of Thrones,’ people,” she joked. “My neighbor in Wyoming has a dog that’s like one of those Northern Inuit dogs like Ghost, Jon Snow’s dog.”
“I thought there was a wolf in my yard. I called my son. I’m like, ‘Phoenix, there’s a wolf in the yard.’ It was my neighbor’s dog,” Michaels recalled with a laugh.
“So that combination is good for me. I’ve got quite a bit of winter to escape the heat and some heat to escape the winter. So it’s kind of like the best of both worlds.”
Michaels noted that another reason she chose to live in Wyoming was due to its proximity to her hometown of Los Angeles.
“We love being out West, and it’s closer to LA,” she said. “I still have family in LA and sometimes need to be in Los Angeles.”
The media personality has previously spoken out about her reasons for fleeing California. Earlier this summer, Michaels went viral for comments she made on “The Sage Steele Show,” declaring that the state “got too crazy for me.”
“I grew up here. I’m a woman. I’m a gay woman. My mom’s a Jew. My dad’s an Arab. I have a Black kid. And believe it or not, my son is half Latin, even though he doesn’t look like it,” Michaels said in June. “I hold a million cards in your game of woke victimology poker. And when I leave California, maybe you’ve lost your f—ing mind. Just maybe! Like when you have me running from home, maybe it’s gone way too far.”
Michaels has slammed California’s progressive policies for driving an uptick in crime and worsening the state’s homelessness crisis.
During her interview with Fox News Digital, Michaels detailed why she believes her issues with LA are not “political.”
“In other words, I don’t think of them as right or left issues,” she said. “They should be nonpartisan issues. Crime affects everyone. Should we be worrying about that homelessness crisis? Not right, not left. How can we help these people? Because just saying, ‘Yeah, whatever. Tent camps on the street. Go for it.’”
Michaels continued, “I mean, there’s obviously a lot more going on with these individuals. There’s addiction, there’s mental health issues. I’m certainly not an expert, although I have interviewed an expert on my podcast and there’s obviously a better way forward. It’s not good for people who are homeless. It’s not good for the city.”
“There are laws that have passed with regard to protecting our kids that I just don’t agree with,” she added. “Really extreme stuff, like a law that passed where 24-year-old men can have sex with 14-year-olds and not have to register as a sex offender.”
WATCH: Jillian Michaels explains why her issues with LA are ‘nonpartisan’: ‘Crime affects everyone’
Michaels was referring to California bill SB 145, which removed a requirement for adults who were convicted of committing certain sex acts with minors within a 10-year age difference to register as sex offenders. In 2020, the bill passed in both legislative houses and was signed into law by California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“I tried to block it out. It’s so upsetting. And it had to do with LGBTQ rights,” Michaels said. “And I just thought if a 24-year-old man touches my 14-year-old kid, which is what I had said to Sage Steele, ‘You don’t go after them. I’ll go after them myself.'”
“And that’s not a good thing,” she added with a laugh. “That’s a bad idea. You know, I don’t need to go full-blown vigilante. I’m just looking for a place where the world feels more sane. People are getting along better.”
Michaels recently formed a partnership with Bill Maher’s Club Random to expand her audio podcast “Keeping It Real” to video.
The “Keeping It Real” podcast‘s new video format “features an impressive lineup of guests and broadens the conversation to tackle the tough topics which matter the most in helping us better understand ourselves and the world around us,” per a press release.
While speaking with Fox News Digital, Michaels explained how her podcast has evolved since she launched it in 2011.
“It was audio only, and it originally was all about fitness and nutrition,” Michaels said of “Keeping It Real.”
She continued, “And then it started to expand in conversation. I would interview different doctors and Ph.D.s.”
Michaels recalled that she decided to team up with Maher to produce her video podcast after appearing on his HBO talk show “Real Time With Bill Maher” and later joining him as a guest on his “Club Random with Bill Maher” podcast.
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“We got into a few heated discussions about different topics across the spectrum of wellness, right? Medicine, vaccines, pharma companies, big food lobbyists, and all of the things that I have been talking about for years with investigative journalists, Ph.D.s, MDs, behind the scenes,” she said.
Michaels continued, “And Bill basically said, ‘Why is nobody else saying this? And the reality is that there is a certain amount of medical McCarthyism going on. You get the pharma cartels that come down on these doctors like nobody’s business and some of it’s being censored on social and all different reasons that the truth is having a difficult time coming to light these days, or you weren’t even allowed to have a thoughtful conversation to explore it, right? Even if you’re wrong, you can’t even explore the dialogue or your hypothesis is wrong.”
Following their conversations, Michaels explained that Maher approached her about producing a video format for “Keeping It Real.”
WATCH: Jillian Michaels on tackling tough topics, partnering with Bill Maher for video podcast ‘Keeping It Real’
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“Bill, being a seeker of truth himself and very anti-cancel culture, essentially said, ‘I want to weaponize you so that you can have these conversations with the people you think are the most credentialed and the most capable of having them in a way where you are cancel-proof,’” she recalled.
“And that’s how my partnership with Bill came about,” Michaels said. “So it’s been a journey, if you will.”
Fox News Digital’s Lori Bashian contributed to this report.
