Adrian Grenier Reveals Wake-Up Call During Early Fame Involved a Plane and Russian Oligarch: ‘Scared the Hell Out of Me’ (Exclusive)
- - Adrian Grenier Reveals Wake-Up Call During Early Fame Involved a Plane and Russian Oligarch: ‘Scared the Hell Out of Me’ (Exclusive)
Liza EsquibiasDecember 11, 2025 at 7:00 AM
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Adrian Grenier is opening up about how he turned his life around after years of focusing on sex, drugs and fame
In PEOPLE's exclusive clip of his upcoming appearance on The Dan Buettner Podcast, Grenier tells a story of how an experience on a Russian oligarch's private plane inspired him to change
The full episode drops Thursday, Dec. 11 at 10 a.m. PT on YouTube
There are many memories from his past that Adrian Grenier will never forget, but there was one that kick-started his mission to turn his life around.
Almost a decade years after the Entourage alum, 49, left his Hollywood lifestyle behind for a long journey of self-reflection and healing, he is sharing what led to that transformative decision. PEOPLE has an exclusive look at Grenier’s appearance on a new episode of The Dan Buettner Podcast, which drops Thursday, Dec. 11, where he explains how a flight across Europe with a Russian oligarch changed his perspective on his future.
“I needed a way to get from one place to the other, and someone says, ‘Oh, you should just hop on a plane with this oligarch. Just call this number,’ ” the actor recalls. “That's the way things were. It would just appear. They would just fall in your lap. And so next thing I know, I'm hopping on this private plane with this rich guy who I never met. I'm living large.”
Dan Buettner and Adrian Grenier
He continues, “I sit down and on under the plane walks these three or four amazingly beautiful, young Russian-vibe ladies. I said to myself, ‘I hope I can be like him one day.’ And then it scared the hell out of me. And then I asked myself, ‘Well, who do you want to be when you're 85?’ ”
Host Dan Buettner, revealing Grenier has called this moment his “cosmic bitch-slap,” then asks how he answered that question.
“I had a lot of learning to do,” Grenier admits. “First of all, I had to come down to earth from the lifestyle. I was agnostic at best, and really just living a life of indulgence and pleasure and enjoyment and believing that when you die, you go to nothing.”
The Devil Wears Prada star also credits his passion for sustainability and environmentalism for giving him an opportunity to ground himself as he navigated the next chapter of his life.
“I started to come down to earth and dig into the soil — and in fact, working literally in soil, in the earth, was a huge, huge help for my growing journey, for my healing journey,” he shares.
Adrian Grenier
Grenier’s career took off with his breakout role as Vincent Chase in the Emmy-nominated series Entourage, which premiered in 2004 and ran until 2011. After years of focusing on sex, drugs and fame, he ended up buying a camper and moving to Texas in 2016.
He went on to marry wife Jordan Roemmele and purchase a 46-acre ranch outside of Austin, where they reside with their two children: sons Seiko Aurelius Grenier, born in June 2023, and Evren Saint-Eros Grenier, born in March 2025.
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The next episode of The Dan Buettner Podcast, produced by Andrew Zimmern’s Intuitive Content, drops Thursday, Dec. 11 at 10 a.m. PT on YouTube and wherever you listen to podcasts.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
