Andie MacDowell Is "Happier" Than She's Been in a "Long Time" After Leaving Hollywood

Andie MacDowell is living the simple life in South Carolina and couldn't be "happier." In a preview for Friday's episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, MacDowell opened up about her choice to leave Hollywood and how she's thriving as an empty nester with her three kids officially out of the house. 

“I’m happier now than I have been in a long time,” MacDowell told Barrymore. “I moved to South Carolina, and I really, I’m taking good care of myself." The actress who shares three kids—daughters Margaret and Rainey and a son Justin—whom she shares with her ex-husband, Paul Qualley, admitted that the move wasn't an easy decision at first. "It took me forever,” she confessed. “Once my kids left, I felt this huge void in my life, because they were so important to me.”

“Margaret really was kinda telling me I was supposed to be having the time of my life, but I wasn’t,” she continued. “But now I am. I’m having the time of my life now. It’s really good.”

MacDowell revealed that while the process “was hard," she eventually found her way. Barrymore, who is also a mother to two daughters—Olive, 12, and Frankie, 10—asked the Ready or Not star to “help walk me through that in a few years.” To which, MacDowell replied: “I’ll tell you what not to do. Come to me, because I have all the information on how not to waste your time. How to get on with it and have a good time. I’ll tell you.”

Elsewhere during the interview, MacDowell shared that she was diagnosed with piriformis syndrome, a painful muscle condition that compresses the sciatic nerve, explaining that she was worried her body was "literally falling apart"—especially after she tried to solve the problem with riding an indoor bike.

"It's not appropriate for my body, and I ended up with bad knees and a bad hip," she explained of biking. "I thought I was literally falling apart." Since her diagnosis, MacDowell now manages the pain with daily exercises. “I have to work my tiny little bottom and my hips," she said. "I have to work the bottom and work my hip. I just do it every day,”

Read the original article on InStyle