A crosswalk in New York City became the moment American Pie actress Shannon Elizabeth knew she was done with the U.S.
The 52-year-old has lived in South Africa since 2016, and according to a report shared by Fox News, she recently explained what pushed her to make that call. As per Celebrity Net Worth, Elizabeth has a net worth of $5 million.
Beyond her acting pursuits, Shannon, who is married to Joseph D. Reitman, is also a recognized professional poker player. For some time, the actress even described it as a second career, as it helped her gain money away from her acting endeavors.
Recently, Shannon Elizabeth described returning from Africa and standing at a busy Manhattan corner.
“When I first went out there, and I came back, I was living in New York at the time,” she told Fox News Digital.
“And I remember this moment of standing at a crosswalk. Everybody’s looking down at their phones, or they’re on their phones. The crosswalk changes, and everybody just starts rushing each way. Nobody’s paying attention except to whatever is in their hand at that moment.”
She said being back in New York after Africa made daily life there feel less pressing.
“I just had this feeling come over me of feeling like I had just been to Africa, and the problems there felt so real — and they are real,” Elizabeth said.
She explained that the “war that’s happening with wildlife” and communities in need in South Africa made New York feel like the wrong place to be.
“That’s when I decided I’m going to move,” she added.
Shannon Elizabeth built Animal Avengers alongside her acting career before conservation took over:
The acting work kept coming after American Pie. Shannon Elizabeth picked up roles in Scary Movie, Love Actually, and That ’70s Show through the early 2000s. That being said, the Texas native had also been quietly building something else on the side. In 2001, she started Animal Avengers, a dog and cat rescue she ran out of Los Angeles for more than a decade.
What began locally eventually pushed her toward something bigger. She started traveling internationally in 2015, drawn toward what she was learning about endangered wildlife abroad.
“I started looking at dog and cat rescues in LA because dogs were what I knew,” she told the Life Outside Poker podcast in July 2024.
“I realized I want to make my own organization and, over time, I just wanted to help out more animals on a bigger scale. I went on a journey of figuring out what that was and realized there was this hectic poaching crisis going on in other parts of the world.”
She opened up to Fox News about what else she had been looking for.
“I love the U.S., but I also love exploring. I love other countries. I love other cultures and learning,” Elizabeth said.
“I just wanted something different and to feel like I was doing something more important than just working on myself.”
Shannon Elizabeth gave an update on her rhino program at Steel City Con in Pittsburgh:
The work Shannon Elizabeth described wanting to do has since taken a very specific shape. As per a report shared by the New York Post in April 2025, she appeared at the Steel City Con in Pittsburgh, where she told the audience what the Shannon Elizabeth Foundation is currently building in South Africa.
“We’re building a sanctuary,” she said, as per People.
“We have a blind black rhino we’ve been taking care of, and we’re going to bring in more rhinos as soon as we can do an expansion.”
She also traced the foundation’s origins for the crowd.
“After my breakout role in American Pie, I started my charity, which was called Animal Avengers at the time. It’s been going since then, it’s just morphed over the years into conservation and wildlife from dogs and cats,” Elizabeth explained.
Cape Town is now home to Shannon Elizabeth, who serves as president of the Shannon Elizabeth Foundation and oversees the Khusela Endangered Wildlife Sanctuary, as per a report shared by The Independent. She told Fox News what first drew her toward Africa.
“I just wanted to understand what I could do to help,” she said.
Edited by Nimisha