From Dua Lipa to Idris Elba, there are so many entertainment industry titans who call the UK home. However, there are also plenty of other celebs who moved to the UK as children or who were born to British parents living abroad.
Here are 11 British celebs who were born outside of the UK:
1. Emma Watson was born to British parents in Paris, France on April 1, 1990.
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After their divorce, she moved to Oxfordshire, England with her mother and brother.
2. Millie Bobby Brown was born to British parents in Marbella, Málaga, Spain on February 19, 2004.
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When she was 4, they moved back to the UK. Then, when she was 8, they relocated to Orlando, Florida and later Los Angeles.
3. Ncuti Gatwa was born in the Nyarugenge district in Kigali, Rwanda on Oct. 15, 1992.
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When he was two, his family left Rwanda for Scotland.
In the BBC Scotland documentary Black and Scottish, he said, "We came to UK because of the genocide that happened in Rwanda in '94. Landscape wise [Rwanda] looks really similar to Scotland. We were refugees, we were refugees coming to the UK and I definitely now view myself as a Rwandan Scotsman – yes there’s such a term and I’m giving it a name today! It's a thing…I'm making it a thing."
His father studied at the University of Edinburgh, so they lived in the university's accommodations for international families.
4. Rita Ora was born to Albanian parents in Pristina, Kosovo (then Yugoslavia) on November 26, 1990.
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When she was about a year old, the family left for London.
Rita told Vogue Arabia, "When the conflict started in what is now former Yugoslavia, my parents made the difficult decision to leave. Thousands were killed in the brutal decadelong, decadeslong war, and more than one million people were forced to flee, including my parents, with me and my siblings in tow.
My mom was a psychiatrist and my dad an economist. They left behind their whole lives and had to start from scratch when they arrived in London as refugees. But protecting us was their main priority and I count my blessings every day that they did what they did."
5. The 1975 drummer George Daniel was born in Brussels, Belgium on March 23, 1990.
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He grew up in Seattle, Washington before moving to Wilmslow (near Machester) as a teenager.
6. Beabadoobee was born in Iloilo City, Philippines on June 3, 2000.
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When she was a child, she moved to London with her parents.
7. Richard E. Grant was born in Mbabane, Eswatini (then the Protectorate of Swaziland) on May 5, 1957.
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His dad was the Swazi Minister of Education.
Richard studied drama at Cape Town University then moved to the UK in 1982.
8. Queen singer Freddie Mercury was born to Parsi Indian parents in Stone Town, Tanzania (then Zanzibar, a British protectorate) on September 5, 1946.
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His parents moved to Tanzania because his dad was a clerk for the UK government. They sent Freddie to boarding school in India when he was a child.
The family relocated to Feltham, England in 1964, when Zanzibar became part of Tanzania.
9. Lena Headey was born to British parents in Hamilton, Bermuda on October 3, 1973.
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Her father was reportedly a police officer who'd been transferred to Bermuda.
When Lena was 5, the family moved to Somerset, England, and when she was 11, they relocated to Yorkshire.
10. Hugo Weaving was born to British parents in Ibadan, Nigeria on April 4, 1960.
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At the time, his father was a seismologist. A year later, the family relocatd to Bedford, England, but they moved around to many different places.
Hugo told the Sydney Morning Herald, "We came out to Melbourne, then moved to Sydney. From Sydney, we went back to England briefly, then to Johannesburg, then back to England and lived in Beaconsfield, and then we went to Bristol."
When he was 16, they finally settled in Sydney.
11. And finally, Dominic Monaghan was born to British parents in Berlin, Germany (then West Berlin, West Germany) on December 8, 1976.
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When he was 11, they moved to Stockport, England.
In 2024, he got his Irish passport.
On Instagram, he said, "I am so DELIGHTED due to my family history I was able to apply for an Irish passport giving me back the rights that were taken from me due to the Brexit vote."
