Why Cameron Diaz Disappeared From Hollywood

When Cameron Diaz was still in high school, she signed her first modeling contract and appeared in ads for Levi's and Calvin Klein. She became recognizable nationwide when she appeared on the cover of Seventeen Magazine in 1990. Fittingly enough, she was actually 17. Diaz continued to model for a few years and even appeared in a Coca-Cola campaign before successfully auditioning for the role of Tina in Chuck Russell's comedic superhero noir "The Mask" in 1994. The star of "The Mask" was Jim Carrey, then experiencing a massive career upswing, and Diaz was swept up with him, becoming a household name almost immediately.

Diaz almost instantly became a media sensation, and her acting career took off. In the years after "The Mask," Diaz appeared in notable indie dramas like "She's the One," "The Last Supper," and "Feeling Minnesota," all of them with notable co-stars. By 1997, she moved into Hollywood's top tier, appearing in the giant hit romance "My Best Friend's Wedding," as well as Danny Boyle's kooky noir "A Life Less Ordinary." In 1998, she was in the massive comedy hit "There's Something About Mary" (she played Mary). Diaz was often drawn to outlandish and ambitious dramas, so it wasn't much of a surprise to see her in an absurdist comedy like "Being John Malkovich" or an assertively bleak oil smear like "Very Bad Things." By the time Diaz appeared in "Charlie's Angels" in 2000 and "Shrek" in 2001, she seemed like an immovable Hollywood fixture.

Until 2014, when Diaz retired somewhat abruptly from acting. She never made an official announcement, yet Diaz refrained from appearing in any films or TV shows over the 10 years that followed. Here's what happened.

In 2002, Diaz starred in a raunchy road comedy called "The Sweetest Thing" with Christina Applegate and Selma Blair. The $43 million film only made about $67 million at the box office, but it was noted at the time for being a raunchy, sex-forward comedy with female leads; the sex comedies of the day tended to focus on men. "The Sweetest Thing" garnered a passionate cult audience, however, and the three leads were assembled by EW in 2018 to talk about the film's legacy.

It was during this 2018 interview that Diaz first announced to the public that she was officially retired. The interviewer, Natalie Abrams, asked if the trio had ever spent any time together since filming "The Sweetest Thing," and they embarrassingly admitted that they hadn't, although they all wish they had. Diaz said, "I'm literally doing nothing." Applegate said that she was "literally doing nothing, too! I'm semi-retired, I haven't worked for years. I'm a mom, that's what we do. So I'm around, man." This inspired Diaz to announce, "That's so awesome. I'm totally down. I'm semi-retired, too, and I am actually retired, so I would love to see you ladies."

The announcement came as a surprise. In 2018, Diaz hadn't appeared in a film since 2014's "Annie," playing the wicked orphanage warden Miss Hannigan. Her filmography then abruptly stopped. At the time, fans speculated that she was merely taking a career break, or that perhaps Hollywood studios had, for some reason, refused to hire her. It took four years for her to announce that she had quit acting.

Diaz, it should be noted, was not experiencing a career slump in 2014. Indeed, her career continued apace since the early 2000s, as she continued to appear in action blockbusters, notable romances, and oddball projects by high-profile directors. She worked with Cameron Crowe on "Vanilla Sky" and with Martin Scorsese on "Gangs of New York." She had a co-lead role in Oliver Stone's "Any Given Sunday," and proper leads in Nancy Meyers' "The Holiday" and Curtis Hanson's "In Her Shoes." She was in the freaky sci-fi flick "The Box," as well as Ridley Scott's utterly baffling "The Counselor." All the while, Diaz stayed squarely in the mainstream, as she continued to voice the role of Fiona in the successful "Shrek" sequels, and starred opposite Tom Cruise in "Knight and Day." In 2011, she received a great deal of acclaim for her role in Jake Kasdan's "Bad Teacher." Diaz was clearly doing well for herself and was incredibly busy. In 2014 alone, she starred in "Annie," but also "The Other Woman" and "Sex Tape."

Then she stopped.

In 2024, Diaz, now 52, spoke at Fortune Magazine's Most Powerful Women Summit — an event covered by the Hollywood Reporter — and she finally elucidated on her decision to stop acting. Diaz said she retired because it "was something I just had to do." She continued:

"It felt like the right thing for me to do to reclaim my own life and I just really didn't care about anything else. Nobody's opinion, nobody's success, no one's offer, no one's anything could change my mind about my decision of taking care of myself and building the life that I really wanted to have."

With no pressure to act, Diaz pursued her own interests. This is admirable.

In Business Insider, Diaz also talked a little bit about how exhausting her job was, as it required constant travel. It seems she wanted to sit still for a little bit.

Diaz wasn't merely working a lot, however. She was an acclaimed actress as well. Because she was drawn to ambitious projects by interesting filmmakers, she was always challenging herself with new kinds of roles. In her "mainstream" movies, Diaz often played flustered city mice longing for romance, but more often, she played weirdos, villains, or outsiders. Throughout her career, Diaz has been nominated for four Golden Globes, for her roles in "There's Something About Mary," "Being John Malkovich," "Vanilla Sky," and "Gangs of New York." "Malkovich" and "Vanilla" also netted her SAG Award nominations.

She was also acclaimed for her teen-friendly pop performances, and Diaz has been nominated for a whopping 16 MTV Movie Awards, winning three. Most recently, she was nominated for "Best WTF Moment" for her performance in Scott's "The Counselor," wherein her character, Malkina, climbs up the windshield of a convertible sports car and proceeds to ... um ... have you seen "Titane?"

And the acclaim just continued to roll in. In 2009, Diaz received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and in 2010, Forbes Magazine listed her as one of the richest women in Hollywood. For anyone who might assume Diaz couldn't get work or was suffering financially, let us assure you that was 100% not the case.

The Hollywood Reporter article notes that, in the years since "Annie," Diaz has hardly been inactive. She married her husband Benji Madden (the guitarist of the band Good Charlotte) in 2015, and the couple currently has two children. They were introduced only a few months previous by Diaz's friend, Nicole Ritchie, who was, in a fun relationship parallel, married to Benji's twin brother Joel (the lead singer of Good Charlotte). The couple had a daughter via a surrogate pregnancy in 2019 and then had a son together, born in 2024.

In 2020, Diaz and her business partner, Katherine Power, began their own winery called Avaline, which is thriving to this day.

One can see why Diaz might want to keep her private life secret when one considers how public her relationships had been in the past. She dated pop star Justin Timberlake, and their relationship was well-known enough to warrant a sight gag in "Shrek 2." She dated other big stars like Matt Dillon in 1998, and Jared Leto from 1999 to 2003. Diaz also dated the New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez. She was on tabloid covers and was stalked by paparazzi. In 2005, she was even blackmailed by a photographer who had once taken nude pictures of her as part of a bondage gear spread. Diaz sued him, and he went to prison for three years.

Diaz's privacy, however, had clearly been violated, and she was likely sensitive about living so publicly.

Cameron Diaz, however, is ready to return to acting after nearly a decade away. In the Hollywood Reporter in 2022, she announced that she would be appearing in a film appropriately titled "Back in Action" with her "Annie" co-star Jamie Foxx. In "Back in Action," Diaz and Foxx will play former CIA agents who are forced, well, back into action when their post-retirement identities are compromised. The subject seems wholly appropriate for this phase of Diaz's career. There were even rumors from the set that Foxx was behaving badly, but Diaz chimed in to defend Foxx, saying that he was only ever wholly professional. The Netflix film is due on the streaming service in January 2025.

The Hollywood Reporter also noted that Diaz will once again play Fiona in the upcoming animated film "Shrek 5." The last Shrek movie, "Shrek Forever After," came out in 2010. The film is currently scheduled for release on July 1, 2026.

In 2024, it was also announced that Diaz was circling a film called "Outcome," which would reunite her with her "Feeling Minnesota" co-star Keanu Reeves. Jonah Hill is co-writing the screenplay, and it follows the travails and past crimes of an aging Hollywood star. The film was described as a dark comedy, which, given Diaz's taste in projects, tracks.

Ultimately, Diaz left the limelight of her own volition, pursued other interests, and is busy raising her two young children. She didn't owe anyone an explanation, but it's nice to finally get one. And now, fans have something to look forward to.