Wherever you go, people stare at you. Paparazzi take pictures, fans ask for autographs, absolute strangers wonder aloud if they once met you at a party. For the hard-pressed celebrity there’s only one way to get away from it all: hide on your own desert island.
The latest recruit to the celebrity island owners club is Nicolas Cage, who bought a 16ha undeveloped island in the Bahamas for $3-million this month. The actor snapped up the island, part of the 365-island Exuma archipelago, after selling his home in Malibu for $10-million last year. Should the star of Face/Off and Wild at Heart miss the company of other celebrities he only has to call on the neighbours. The country music stars Faith Hill and Tim McGraw own a nearby island.
Other Hollywood stars to have chosen the isolated life over the party circuit include Johnny Depp, who owns a Caribbean island, and Leonardo DiCaprio, who bought an island off Belize last year.
But the role model for celebrity island owners is Marlon Brando, who bought a 60ha atoll called Tetiaroa in French Polynesia in 1965, shortly after filming Mutiny on the Bounty. Brando chose to live there to get away from it all, opting for a simple, kimono-clad lifestyle. But things have changed since his death: The Brando, a luxury resort, is due to open on the island in 2008. – Guardian Unlimited Â