In an interview with Fox News, the ‘Vampire Diaries’ star shared foundational notes from his father on their rural lifestyle
Ian Somerhalder is giving fans a look into his humble beginnings.
The Vampire Diaries star, 46, spoke openly about his upbringing in rural Louisiana in a Thursday, April 17, interview with Fox News.
“My dad taught me in the wetlands, when you take more than you give back, there’s an imbalance,” he said of his bayou roots. “And guess who loses? We do. Nature will always find a way to regenerate, it’s us who loses.”
Somerhalder went on to add, “We were super poor, but we were rich,” and noted that he grew up with a shed with freezers full of boxes of Louisiana blue crab, Gulf shrimp, red fish, speckled trout and amberjack. “I’m talking fresh tuna. I’m talking all the good stuff,” said the Lost alum.
As many fans may know, Somerhalder was the face of Versace when he was 16, and he recalled that time as when he realized he was much poorer than he thought.
“You walk into a restaurant, even in 1994, and you order a dozen Louisiana blue crabs or oysters, and it was $100. And I thought, ‘I have a thousand of these things in freezers,’” he recalled. “So while we didn’t have a lot of money, we were rich in culture and the things that we needed.”
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Though he still brings his Louisiana bayou thinking into his future, the Common Grounds co-founder has said his acting career is firmly in his past.
During an exclusive interview with PEOPLE last year, Somerhalder said acting was “in the rearview mirror” after he and his wife, Nikki Reed, 36, moved out of Los Angeles for a countryside farming life.
“We got the rights back for V Wars, but I just don’t know how the hell we would ever make a TV show,” he said at the time, referring to the one-season Netflix sci-fi thriller he and Reed starred in. “We’re building three companies at the same time, raising kids.” Somerhalder and Reed share a 7-year-old daughter, named Bodhi Soleil, and a 20-month-old son.
That same week, Reed echoed the same sentiment towards her return to acting.
“I work over 90 hours a week right now. I’m running a company full time and just launched another, a shared company with the Absorption Company,” said the Twilight star. “I just can’t imagine being able to pivot my energy away, but there’s no door closed.”
