Jim Belushi has traded Hollywood for Oregon — and a weed farm.
The National Lampoon's Animal House actor, 72, was in the process of wrapping up his ABC sitcom According to Jim, during which at its peak, he was making $500,000 an episode, when he visited a family friend who lived on the Rogue River.
The visit proved transformative, personally and professionally, and a few years later, he purchased 15 acres of prime riverfront property in Eagle Point, Oregon, property which he has now grown to upwards of 90 acres, and turned into a thriving cannabis farm, out of which he grows and sells his Belushi's Farm weed products.
© Getty ImagesLeaving Los Angeles
"This — all of this — was an accident," he told Men's Health in 2021. "I wasn't looking to change my career or looking to get out. I invested in this property, and this energy here led me to where I am today."
"I've done it," he also noted to The Hollywood Reporter in 2020 about the Los Angeles lifestyle, adding: "I raised my kids there, went to all the premieres. I went to award shows. I've been to Toscana 1,600 times. I have a grateful feeling for the life I had there — I'm just moving on to kind of a new reinvention."
© WireImageA new purpose
Jim hasn't wholly left Hollywood, and has appeared in a handful of movies and TV series since According to Jim concluded in 2009, however his weed farm provides a different kind of fulfillment.
When talking about the farm, Jim — whose older brother was the groundbreaking comedian John Belushi, who famously died of a drug overdose in 1982 when he was 33 years old — never fails to note the impact he has been able to have on others, and how that in turn has impacted him.
© Getty ImagesRecalling an interaction with an Afghan-war veteran with PTSD who opted for cannabis over the opiates he was recommended, he told Men's Health: "He said, 'Your Black Diamond OG is the only strain I've found that allows me to talk to my wife, talk to my kids, and sleep,'" adding: "And he kind of teared up and he hugged me deeply. I'm like, 'Man, I didn't make this stuff.' And he goes, 'No — but you were a steward.'"
"Alcohol has always been our go-to medicine," he continued, noting: "But it's a poison, y'know? Addiction just comes into a family like a snake and slowly squeezes until somebody dies. Hence John. So once somebody dies in your family from an addiction, you look for alternative medicine. And cannabis is the safest, I believe."
© Getty ImagesJim's personal life
Jim was previously married to Sandra Davenport, with whom he shares son Robert James, born in October 1980, from 1980 to 1988, and later to Marjorie Bransfield from 1990 to 1992.
He married Jennifer Sloan, with whom he shares daughter Jamison, 26, and son Jared, 24, in 1998. Jennifer filed for divorce in 2018, and though the two later reconciled, Jim ultimately filed for divorce in 2021, which has since been finalized.
"The pandemic either brought people together or split them apart," he told Men's Health about his family life, noting that March 17, 2020, which he considers the day COVID-19 "really hit" California, as the beginning of the end of his marriage. "It just blew up my family. We couldn't keep it together," he said of the pandemic.
