Bruce Willis tried to buy an Idaho town in the '90s. When local journalists found out, he was 'less than happy,' a new podcast reveals
- Bruce Willis began developing property in the small town of Hailey, Idaho in 1994.
- When local journalists found out, the "Die Hard" actor got angry, according to a new podcast.
Bruce Willis famously dislikes the bright lights of Hollywood. But many may not know that he hated it so much that in the '90s, he settled his growing family into a small town full of working-class people called Hailey, Idaho, and began making it his own.
Willis may have only sold his 20-acre ranch in Hailey in 2018, but his roots in the town go back much farther. A new podcast from iHeartRadio delves deeper into the little-reported story about the town Willis settled in, dubbed "Haileywood."
In the first episode, released on Wednesday, host Dana Schwartz reports that in 1994, the "Die Hard" actor and his then-wife Demi Moore slowly started buying property in town. First, according to Schwartz, they bought the vacant lots near their home for more privacy, then a run-down old movie theater on the town's main street, then a bar.
Though Willis was anonymously purchasing these properties under the protection of his company name, Ix Nay Investment Trust, journalists quickly began to catch on. And according to the podcast, Willis wasn't thrilled that reporters were letting people know what the actor was up to in Hailey.
"We felt it was our duty, our journalistic responsibility, to let our readers know exactly who was buying property on main street, and I think he was less than happy with us over that," Wayne Adair, a former news editor at Hailey's Wood River Journal, told Schwartz in the podcast's premiere episode.
In addition to journalists, Schwartz speaks with the town's mayor, local politicians, and other native residents for the tell-all podcast about what happened in "Haileywood."