At the end of July, the legendary actor Michael Douglas, say down with fellow villagers in Valldemossa and enjoyed a night to remember in honour of the more “veteran” villagers. And he has since made it clear that he intends to spend much more time in Mallorca. Douglas has said that he now considers himself “semi-retired” and intends to spend at least half the year at his home on the island.
At this year’s at Atlántida Film Festival in Palma, he was presented with the honorary award by Queen Letizia of Spain and the actor told the media: “I want to get rid of the extra baggage I have accumulated over the years and enjoy my free time here. I’m going to be in Mallorca for six or seven months. It’s not a formal retirement, but I’m semi-retired,” he said. Such is his attachment to the Balearics that in 2003 he was appointed Mallorca’s cultural ambassador.
Douglas is still open to new projects, both on the big screen and for television, but not just anything, he wants something special that makes him want to work. That’s why he has warned his agents to only call him if the material is good. It was in 2023 that he decided to take a break that has already extended to more than half of 2024, where he spent much of his time on his Mallorca estate which, between 2014 and 2019, he tried to sell.
Then came the pandemic and he took the decision to take it off the market, as he found it the perfect place for the family with his wife Catherine Zeta-Jones and their children. Given that he spends so much time on the island, during his talk with the press he was asked about the tourist overcrowding in certain areas of Spain, including Mallorca. Douglas said that “the problem is the proliferation of Airbnb flats in combination with rental cars, and that leads to problems such as water shortages.”
