Paul Hogan has been spotted out and about in LA, more than a year after complaining he barely leaves his beachfront mansion.
The 82-year-old Australian movie star was seen running errands in his neighbourhood, where he was photographed filling up his car at a local petrol station.
the Crocodile Dundee actor, who has lived in California since 2003, cut a casual figure during the rate outing, wearing double denim and sunglasses.
It comes after he courted controversy for a Sunrise interview in May last year, in which he revealed he was “homesick” and had barely left his $4.5 million home in Venice Beach amid the pandemic and a rise in homelessness and crime in the area.
The usually upbeat Aussie star appeared out of sorts during his interview with co-host David Koch, who noted that Hogan, a regular guest on the show, was the “most down” he’d ever seen him.
Hogan went on to claim he was unhappy in LA but refused to return to Australia while strict hotel quarantine was in place.
“The crime’s up. I don’t go anywhere. The minute I can come home without being locked in a hotel for two weeks, I’m back,” he said.
That same month, Hogan was seen penning a letter to the homeless that he reportedly put outside his property.
According to the Daily MailHogan’s note read: “THIS IS MY HOUSE NOT YOURS.”
Hogan later denied writing the message, despite being pictured writing it with a red marker.
Months later in November, Hogan told Today he was finally returning to his home country in time for Christmas.
“I’m surviving. I’m homeick, but I’ll be back for Christmas … Looking forward to the end of this stupid disease,” he said at the time.
Hogan, who is now back in LA, has previously said he enjoys the anonymity he gets in the US, which he said kept him in tinseltown despite feeling “like a kangaroo in a Russian zoo”.
“I’m unknown,” he said in 2019, after so many years of scrutiny in his home country.
“I can just put me sunglasses on or a cap or something and no-one recognizes me … And that’s a luxury.”
Hogan – affectionately dubbed ‘Hoges’ – shot to fame as the loveable larrikin on The Paul Hogan Show in the early 70s, before becoming a global superstar – and a one-man arm of Australia’s tourism industry – with the smash hit film Crocodile Dundee in 1986.
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