Glenn Close has revealed she has left New York City behind in favor of small-town Montana.

The Emmy, Tony and Golden Globe-winning actor, 77, is known for her iconic roles in films such as Fatal Attraction and 101 Dalmatians and can currently be seen in the new Netflix action-comedy Back in Action.

In a new interview with The Wall Street Journal, Close said she moved to the town of 57,000 in 2019 to be closer to her family.

“Today, my home is in Bozeman, Montana,” she said. “All of my siblings live here. My modest, 1892 brick house has a porch where I can see the mountains and say hi to neighbors.”

Her 2,316 square-foot home has three bedrooms and three bathrooms and is close to the town center.

However, Close did add that she plans to construct a bigger house nearby.

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“I’m building a larger house about a half-hour outside of town,” she said. “It’s going to be my Zen farmhouse and our family sanctuary. In the back will be a stone cottage, reminding me of the best years of my childhood.”

In a previous 2021 interview with Mountain Outlaw magazine, Close said she “never used to get homesick” before moving to Bozeman.

“Not only is Bozeman my home, but I couldn’t wait to get back here. When I left to go to that job, [her sisters] Jessie and Tina were there to see me off at the airport. It was so great. I’ve come to realize how much I dread going away,” continued Close.

“When I was little, I got solace in nature, and that has never changed. I always tried to create that same potential for my family, especially now to come back here and be with my siblings and have a piece of land outside of town that will always be here for my daughter and her children.

“That’s my legacy. I just feel incredibly lucky. I do think these will be the best years of my life.”

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Earlier this month, Glenn Close hit out at JD Vance during an appearance on The View. She previously starred in a film based on his book about his life, Hillbilly Elegy.

When co-host Joy Behar noted Vance “had a whole different personality in those days than he has now”, Close said: “I don’t know what happened”, suggesting that political success might have altered his outlook.

“Power is probably the biggest aphrodisiac for a human being,” she told Behar.

Nevada does not currently allow paid family caregivers for children who are profoundly autistic, but it does for dementia.

Darian Garcia gave up a good warehouse job last month to stay home with his 8-year-old son.

Rico is profoundly autistic, which leaves him with the mental age of a toddler. He’ll need 24/7 intensive support for the rest of his life.

“My husband had to quit his job to stay here with Rico,” Letty Garcia said. “Now we’re down to one income.”

They’re nearing bankruptcy and may lose their Spanish Springs home. If Nevada had paid-caregiver laws like other states such as Colorado and California, the family might not be sinking financially over their son’s disabilities.

“Because he’s legally responsible for Rico, he can’t get paid to be his caregiver in Nevada,” Garcia said of her husband.

But if Rico got placement in a residential facility outside the home, the state of Nevada would have to pay for it — at a much higher cost. It makes no sense to Garcia why the state would have a policy that costs more money.

“If we lived in California and Dad stayed home, we did the math and it would be like $4,000 to $5,000 a month that he would get paid, and that would be cheaper to the state than sending him to an institution,” she said.

Profound autism: Shortage of Nevada disability services threatens to sink Sparks family

Allowing paid family caregivers would require action by the Nevada Legislature, which begins its every-two-years session in February.

If state lawmakers made this relatively simple change, Garcia said, it would improve her family’s life and thousands of others in Nevada who have a profoundly autistic child.

How paid family caregivers could help profoundly autistic children

Having family members be paid caregivers may sound strange, but it’s not uncommon. About 10 states have such programs, and it keeps those with disabilities in their own homes with the people who love them rather than in a facility where they’re one of many patients.

A new Nevada law went into effect this year that allows family members to be paid caregivers for Medicaid recipients with dementia.

Garcia thinks the law should be updated to include families with profoundly autistic children because not only would it help stave off the financial ruin her family faces, but it would be a win for the state, too.

“We’re in the midst of filing bankruptcy and (my husband) can’t get paid to be Rico’s caregiver,” she said. “But if Rico were to go to a placement somewhere, they would pay somebody there to take care of him.”

Colorado is among the states that pays family members to care for profoundly autistic children, in part because, like Nevada, it doesn’t have the facilities and staff to care for all kids who need help.

“I think all families should be demanding that they’re compensated,” said Michelle Linn, a Colorado mom who gets paid $7,300 a month to care for her profoundly autistic son.

“It sounds like a lot, but it’s less than minimum wage.”

Because her son needs 24-hour care seven days a week, her stipend works out to about $10 an hour.

“There aren’t other individuals or businesses willing to do it for that rate, but it’s amazing for the families,” Linn said. “You can make your mortgage payment for your child and then, like, plan for when you die to provide care when you’re gone.”

She said if she got in an accident and couldn’t care for her son anymore, the state of Colorado would view her paid-caregiver role as a bargain.

“There aren’t really even any institutions in Colorado (that could care for her son) so they’d have to send him out of state, which would cost a heck of a lot more,” she said.

To qualify, Linn took free night classes for about a month to become a certified nursing assistant. Then she was hired by a third-party company that oversees about 25 such caregivers. It inspects her home, monitors medication administration by phone app and conducts other oversight to make sure she’s caring properly for her son every day.

“It really helps a lot of families that otherwise would be destitute because you can’t work,” Linn said.

Other ways Nevada could help profoundly autistic children

The Garcias would love it if they could get “respite” care. It provides a break for live-in caregivers by having a professional come into the home and take over for a while.

Rico qualifies for Medicaid, a joint federal and state program that covers medical costs for low-income adults and people with disabilities. Medicaid doesn’t cover respite care, but states can offer waivers that include coverage for respite.

Nevada, though, has restrictions tied to the poverty line, Garcia said, and although filing for bankruptcy, her family makes too much to qualify.

“What Nevada is doing is unique in the way they’ve designed their respite,” said Judith Ursitti, founder of the Profound Autism Alliance and mother of a profoundly autistic son. “The income restriction shouldn’t be there because it leaves out everyone who really needs it. It really should be based on the qualifying disability of the person — and that could be fixed by the state legislature.”

She added that Garcia’s son is never going to make money.

“He is forever individually impoverished because of his disability,” Ursitti said. “That should be recognized. It’s definitely an easy fix that the federal agency over Medicaid would approve right away because most states fund respite care not based on income but on how intense the support needs are.”

Ursitti’s son Jack gets 15 hours of respite care a week. Combined with a public school that takes care of him during weekdays, this allows Ursitti to not only do grocery shopping but to have a job.

“That makes me a taxpaying citizen,” she said.

Could Nevada schools provide better services for children?

Rico is not enrolled in Washoe County School District after a couple of bad experiences, Garcia said, one self-injury left his head gashed open and another where a teacher’s aide was injured.

Ursitti had similar challenges with the schools in Texas where she lived.

“When my son Jack was diagnosed, we struggled to even get our school district to acknowledge he had autism or to provide any kind of support,” she said. “They wouldn’t do anything.”

By federal law, free and appropriate public education must be provided for all children, even those with profound behavioral issues, regardless of whether the school can afford it or how it might affect the overall school system.

“It’s the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act,” Ursitti said, referring to federal law and emphasizing the word “individuals.”

“Funding is an issue and schools struggle. That’s a reality I don’t want to minimize, but this population (of profoundly autistic children) is just being pushed aside.”

When Ursitti got no support from the school system or the state of Texas, she had to make a decision that she said lots of parents face.

“Do I spend a lot of money on attorneys fighting the schools or do I use that money to provide services for my child right now,” she said.

Many parents can’t afford to go up against school districts with their own legal teams, and they can’t wait for years for their cases to work through the court system, she said. So they often keep their child home and deal with the situation in silence, alone.

“The system is completely stacked” against parents, Ursitti said.

She went with a third option. Her husband received a job opportunity in Massachusetts, which has among the nation’s best resources for kids like Jack and Rico.

Within three months of arriving in Massachusetts, the local school had placed Jack in a program for profoundly autistic students with one-on-one support that included behavioral support, speech therapy, physical therapy, everything he needed.

“What it took was moving across the country, away from all of our family, away from our Southern heritage, to a different world,” she said. “To make that move was daunting financially.”

One reason Massachusetts has better services — and something Ursitti suggests Nevada consider — is a special education law that’s stronger than federal law.

“The school districts are aware of that,” she said, “and the services here are better because of it.”

Mark Robison is the state politics reporter for the Reno Gazette Journal, with occasional forays into other topics. Email comments to mrobison@rgj.com or comment on Mark’s Greater Reno Facebook page.

The opening gavel strike for the 2025 session is mere hours away and so begins the flurry of activity of a nearly $11 billion dollar budget and lawmaking.

Sen. Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe), the Senate Majority Leader, sat down with Source New Mexico to talk about priorities in the 60-day session. He celebrated the closeness of the governor’s proposed budget, and the one proposed by lawmakers, saying there’s a lot of consensus even before the negotiations start. 

“It’s a really good thing for us during the session, but also for New Mexicans, because we need to continue to put forward responsible budgets,” Wirth said.

The relationship between the fourth floor and the rest of the Roundhouse has thawed, but only recently. 

In July, lawmakers adjourned a special session last year after five hours. The two houses passed emergency funds for disaster victims, but declined to take up any of the governor’s proposals for determining when someone can stand trial, harsher prison sentences and other crime legislation.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham called July’s special session “one of the most disappointing days of my career,” and excoriated Democratic leadership in the days before and after for not sponsoring her proposed bills.

Wirth personally will be bringing bills addressing campaign finance reform, a plan to give the state more authority on protecting intermittent rivers from federal regulations gaps and raising caps for the state’s insurance program, a last resort for homeowners, among others.

But the first 30 days, lawmakers expect to focus on two legislative packages addressing public safety and behavioral health.

Source: What’s your assessment of how the Legislature will work with the governor’s public safety agenda?

Wirth: There have been a number of conversations between myself and the governor about the public safety process, and what we’ve done with the 30-day expedited plan. 

The public safety package will be an omnibus bill centered around criminal competency and on the behavioral health side, there will be a new behavioral health trust fund, taking one-time, non-recurring money and putting it into a trust fund. It’ll spin off a 5% return. We’re hoping to get that up to $1 billion – may not happen this year, right up front. Then there’s going to be a second appropriation, probably $150 to $200 million for behavioral health infrastructure. 

We are continuing to deal with the decimation of the whole behavioral health system that happened 10 years ago and critical to public safety proposals involving those suffering from mental illness and are unhoused is that there’s a place for them to get treatment. 

I think the two parts of this overall package that we’ll do in the first 30 days are something certainly that the governor wants: It fits into her agenda. Obviously, there will be discussions about what is in the public safety agenda package – her priorities and our priorities – but I’m feeling more optimistic about a process that’s good to get us where we need to go. 

There were hard words in the aftermath of last year’s special session from the governor, chastising lawmakers for not addressing public safety then; has the relation been better in recent months?

There’s no question that it was strained after the special session, but the governor reached out first, she and I have had a number of one-on-one meetings, and again, I think there’s an understanding that we need to move forward. 

I’m really confident that the process we’ve set up here gives us the chance to thoroughly vet these bills, which are complicated. And the special session: it just wasn’t ready, there was no behavioral health piece. The frustrating thing is it wasn’t ready to go, it was forced and you can’t do a special session when everything’s not preplanned. 

I also want to stress we’ve had six incredible years of productive work during Gov. Lujan Grisham’s term. I’ve been here long enough to know that’s certainly not always the case. Under the prior administration, from a Democratic perspective, we spent eight years fighting for the status quo.

Governor, Legislature feud over crime with special session just days away 

There’s been this concern that the focus on crime would suck attention from other issues coming forward in the session, any response on that?

Absolutely. I had the same concern, but I think it’s really important by having this emphasis on the first 30 days. It allows us to really put forward a package, send it to the governor and then shift gears, and make sure we get all the other key issues through the process and to the table.  

What you don’t want to have is 100 different crime bills floating around and us trying to round all that up right at the end of the session. I think that would have the potential to have the whole thing crater. 

We’ll have a focused package up front and I want to be clear, it doesn’t mean additional crime bills won’t be heard on an individual basis. I think putting the emphasis up front addresses that concern  and will allow us to obviously send it up to the governor. She gets her input on it, and adds things and figures out what needs to be on the table as we move forward. 

Putting the emphasis on the midway point, I think helps address exactly those concerns.