Ty Burrell has opened up about his decision to leave Los Angeles for Salt Lake City after wrapping up the final season of Modern Family.
After Burrell, 57, starred as real estate agent Phil Dunphy in 11 seasons of the hit sitcom from 2009 to 2020, the actor decided to leave Hollywood alongside his wife, Holly Burrell, and their two daughters, Frances, 15, and Greta, 13, to relocate to Utah.
“It's just been spectacular,” the actor told People in an interview published on Sunday. “We moved here right after [Modern Family] ended, and I don't have any regrets. It's been lovely and a great place to raise the kids.”
The Finding Dory voice actor continued, saying that the adjustment from living in a city to the more rural Utah was an adjustment that took time to get used to.
“My parents weren’t really those kinds of people,” Burrell said about living in the mountains. “So at first, when we moved here, it almost felt like cosplay, like we were pretending to be people who were outdoorsy, and now we really truly love it.”
Burrell was not the only Modern Family cast member to make the decision to leave California. Earlier this year, Ariel Winter, known for playing Burrell’s on-screen daughter on the series, revealed she also left Los Angeles. In an interview with People in May 2025, she said her choice came after she endured severe childhood trauma.
“It was every headline I read about myself, like, grown people writing articles about me saying how I looked terrible or pregnant or like a fat slut. I mean, I was 14. It totally damaged my self-esteem,” she told the publication of her treatment by the press.
Winter, who was born and raised in Los Angeles, started appearing on screen at the age of four. She was 11 when Modern Family first premiered in 2009.
“I understood what it was like to be hated. No matter what I was going through, I was a target. It made it very difficult to look at myself in the mirror and go, ‘I love this version of me,’” she said.
On top of the negative press about her appearance, Winter said her rocky relationship with her mom, Chrisoula Workman, was also the talk of the town.
In April 2020, when Modern Family finally wrapped, Winter said she and her boyfriend, actor Luke Benward, made the decision to leave Los Angeles behind.
“I didn’t leave the industry,” she explained, noting her acting career isn’t over yet. “I just left the city of L.A.
“It holds some not-great memories for me, and I’m young and never lived anywhere else, and thought, ‘Why not?’ If you’re no longer on a network show that shoots there, you don’t really have to be there, and if I get a network show, I can easily go back,” she said.
