10 Hollywood Stars Who Have Ditched Their Cell Phones

Smartphones are, by this point, completely ubiquitous in modern society. Everywhere you go, it feels like you need an app to navigate things from digital tickets gaining entry to games and concerts to the ability to read a menu. QR codes, apps, social media accounts, and even the ever-handy GPS are all available at your fingertips. It connects you 24/7 to the world around you. But at what cost?

Increasingly, many people are realizing that being forever connected to the rest of the world through your phone isn’t necessarily a good thing. And more than a few of those people just so happen to be famous! In this list, we’ll take a look at ten celebrities who have pushed back on the smartphone trend and ditched their cell phones at some point. Honestly, after hearing some of their reasons for going back to using flip phones or cutting out cell phone use altogether, maybe they are onto something here. However, it would be interesting to know how long they lasted…

Related: 10 Ways That Technology Has Destroyed Privacy

10 Sarah Jessica Parker

Sarah Jessica Parker was incredibly well-connected digitally as the 2010s dawned on the world. She had both a cell phone and a very active email account. But then, in 2013, she noticed something: She was falling behind on both phone calls and emails. She hated that feeling—the one that felt like she should be more responsive to more people at more times. So she decided to cut one of her technological habits out of her life. And when she examined her lifestyle, the choice became clear. It was time for the cell phone to go!

Choosing to retain her Blackberry specifically so that she could keep up with the many emails she receives from friends and family members, she got rid of her other smartphone and cut out cell phone use altogether. “I chose emails because when you’re on a set, you can carefully and sneakily check a BlackBerry, but you can’t return a phone call,” Parker told E! News when they asked about her decision to ditch the mobile carrier. “Hearing ‘your voicemail is full’ is horrifying to me.” Us, too, Sarah. Us too!^[1]

9 Christopher Walken

Christopher Walken doesn’t just not own a smartphone—he doesn’t own any modern digital technology! The famed actor isn’t exactly young and vibrant at this point in his life. And when computers and other digital tools came on the rise and began to be adopted by the public in the last couple of decades, he was simply too old to jump in like everyone else. So he decided to stay away from cell phones. And computers, too! According to him, he’s never owned a computer in his life, and he doesn’t see the need to start now.

“I just got to it too late,” Walken explained to Stephen Colbert when the late-night host interviewed him about it a few years ago. “I think I’m right at a certain age where it just passed me by. I never got too involved in it because it would be strange to have any 10-year-old be much better at it than I am.” Honestly, that’s not a bad point. Especially when it comes to using computers like the way young people do these days!

But what about cell phones? Certainly, Walken must have a need to be able to talk on the phone (even a flip phone!) with producers and directors every now and again, right? Wrong! “Cell phones and that sort of thing, it’s a little bit like a watch,” Walken revealed to Colbert. “If you need one, somebody else has got it. People are nice about letting me borrow things.” Well… sure. Maybe just to make a call. But you can’t always count on that!^[2]

8 Dierks Bentley

When it came time for Dierks Bentley to get a new phone in 2014, he wasn’t keen on getting an iPhone like pretty much everybody else in the developed world. So, when he went into the Verizon store to pick up his new phone, he specifically asked for the exact opposite. He remembered asking the salesperson there to give him the phone with the absolute lowest level of technology that they had. And that meant a flip phone! Even as everybody else in the world was settling into their iPhone-induced existence. Going against the grain, indeed!

“I’m going low-tech,” Bentley told People Magazine after they asked him about his phone usage. “Everybody else was running out for the new iPhone 6, but I got a flip phone. It has a camera because of the kids, but it’s pretty basic. This one was like 99 cents. I’m trying to call more and text less. I don’t want to check my phone 5,000 times a day anymore. It was getting to me. I’m bringing old back.” We love the sound of that. Maybe that’s a trend we can all get behind.^[3]

7 Justin Bieber

Many of the celebs on this list have ditched their iPhone or other smartphone brands and opted to use a flip phone instead. But Justin Bieber went even further than that. He got rid of any cell phone altogether! Now, it’s not as difficult to do that when you have a manager and a full team of people working around you. We are sure those people have their smartphones and can communicate and cut deals on Justin’s behalf. But still, it’s notable that the pop star ditched his phone completely! And this isn’t a story from way back when, either. Justin opted to make this move in the very recent year of 2021!

While explaining that he only personally owns an iPad to be able to send emails every so often whenever he needs to do so, Justin told Billboard Magazine that his motivation was making sure that people couldn’t constantly contact him asking for favors, help, and other perks that have come from his celebrity status.

“I definitely learned how to have boundaries, and I just don’t feel like I owe anybody anything,” Bieber explained. “That has helped me to be able to just say no and just be firm in it and know that my heart [wants] to help people, but I can’t do everything. I want to sometimes, but it’s just not sustainable.” Seems like ditching the phone and making it so that he can’t receive a phone call or a text message would certainly do the trick!^[4]

6 Simon Cowell

Simon Cowell had a smartphone for a long time. He needed one, considering his career working in the cutthroat pop music industry. But in 2017, he woke up one morning and realized that all he ever got was hammered with text messages and phone calls. He felt far too reachable and far too connected, and he wanted out of it. So he let go of his cell phone. Not just his smartphone, either—we mean he went entirely without a cell phone altogether!

Reflecting on that monumental decision in an interview with ET, the former American Idol judge explained: “It’s very simple. It means you don’t wake up to, like, 50 text messages you can’t reply to. And that’s what happened one morning—I woke up and I’ve got 52 unread messages. And I thought, even if I reply to every one of those, I’m going to get another replying back, and then I’m going to get more that day… so I just turned it off and I went a month, three months, then a year, then two years, then three years. And I love it.” That is seriously some logic that we can get behind. Must be very mentally freeing!^[5]

5 Kate Beckinsale

Kate Beckinsale is so beautiful that she’s allowed to do whatever she wants when it comes to adopting (or not adopting) technology. Okay, we’re half kidding about that part, but she really is beautiful. And she really is old school when it comes to phone use! In 2016, she revealed during an interview with Slash Gear that she still owned a red Verizon LG flip phone. Unlike pretty much every single person around her, Kate wasn’t keen on getting an iPhone for herself. The technological curve was too great, and the digital immersion it offered was too unsettling.

“That’s about the extent of it,” Beckinsale explained to the outlet about her flip phone when they asked which tech products she uses in her everyday life. “I don’t like my iPod. I like a nice record player and a book. I’m very much about that… I’m not much interested in an iPhone.” Honestly, after seeing how round-the-clock connectedness has affected so many people in the world around us, we’re not much interested in that world anymore, either. Perhaps Kate has it right on this one!^[6]

4 Elton John

At least Elton John is totally and completely honest about why he doesn’t have a smartphone. And why he doesn’t have any cell phone at all, actually! The legendary crooner is simply too famous to have to worry about all that stuff. Instead of having people call him directly, he simply never bought a cell phone. His assistant has one, though, and since his assistant is almost always right there with him and in close contact, that person simply serves as the go-between. Imagine that—being so famous that you don’t need to connect yourself to the outside world at all! It’s freeing, in a way.

Now, Elton does use one piece of technology: an iPad. But he doesn’t use it in quite the same way many of us do. He only has it by his side for one single thing—to Skype with his family members when they are far apart. “My life is fabulous,” Elton explained to late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel about his avoidance of cell phones. “I don’t have people ringing me two times a minute. I couldn’t bear to have a phone. And I just have an iPad for the kids and Skyping them when I’m not with them.” Honestly, in some ways, that’s the dream!^[7]

3 Shailene Woodley

A decade ago, in 2014, actress Shailene Woodley decided to completely ditch her cell phone. Of course, she had an assistant, an agent, and a manager, all of whom were helping her career move along, so she had the privilege to be able to do that. The rest of us can’t exactly go no contact with the whole world even if we wanted to… but regardless, she gave up her smartphone for good! Speaking to the Daily Beast about her unique decision, Woodley said at the time that smartphones had led to a “bigger lack of privacy” and a “bigger lack of camaraderie and community” than any invention in history up until that point. Not wrong!

She also told the outlet that if she ever were to buy a phone again, it’d be of the flip variety: “If I were to have one, it would be a flip phone… Since I got rid of my phone, having to pull over and be like, ‘Hey, buddy— do you know how to get here?’ I’m talking to people more than I’ve ever talked to in my life because I no longer have that crutch. The more you get away from all the technological buzz, the more freedom you have.”

Fast forward a few years, though, and there’s been an update! Shailene has finally decided to ditch the flip phone world and go back to using a smartphone… sort of. She went on Jimmy Kimmel Live a couple years ago and admitted that she does now own an iPhone. However, it has no data plan, and she only uses it when she can pick up Wi-Fi. Beyond those moments, she’s still using a flip phone to communicate with friends and family. Huh. That’s certainly one way to go about it—with two phones, each doing half a job.^[8]

2 Michael Cera

You would think that Michael Cera is the ideal person to really fall into the smartphone trend. He came of age just as the iPhone was blowing up, he’s incredibly popular both in his movies and online, and he has the world at his fingertips (metaphorically speaking). But he very much doesn’t want the world at his fingertips, literally, as if he had a smartphone in his hand. And that’s because he had a horrible experience with the Blackberry when it first came out years ago!

Cera spoke to the Hollywood Reporter about his strange career, his quirky personality, and his aversion to smartphones. For one, he revealed that he feels “a bit of fear” about being that connected to the rest of his world because he “might really lose control of my waking life.” But it goes beyond that, too. See, when Blackberry technology first came out, Cera’s best friend bought one immediately. And the next time Michael saw him, they had lunch together. But it didn’t go well!

“Right when people started having smartphones, when it was Blackberries, I had lunch with a friend of mine who was my best friend at the time,” Cera explained. “He’d just gotten a Blackberry, and for the whole meal, he was typing emails, and I sat there lonely and bored. So I had an early aversion to them.” We can definitely understand how that must have made him feel. Interesting to hear that it turned him off to smartphones forever after, too!^[9]

1 Chris Pine

Chris Pine may be an actor known the world over, but that doesn’t mean he needs to be reachable at all times. For many years, he was an advocate of the flip phone. Even long after smartphone technology had been deployed all over the globe, he resisted the urge to use it. That all changed in 2022, though, when he finally bought an iPhone. He wanted to get up to speed with the modern world and all that. But almost immediately, he realized his grave mistake—and went right back to using a flip phone as soon as he could.

“I had a flip phone for three or four years, and I just got an iPhone because I felt pummeled by how difficult being analog was,” Pine explained during a podcast interview a couple years ago. “It was very difficult. But, having just got this crack machine [the iPhone]—it’s really bad. These things are really, really, really bad.”

Lamenting how disorienting it is to have so much information and interconnectedness at his fingertips at every moment, Pine concluded that his soul was hurting the most from using all this modern technology: “I may immediately go back to a flip phone. I don’t know if I can handle [an iPhone]—I don’t know if my soul can handle it.”^[10]