Connie Britton Opens Up About Isolating Move from California to Tennessee: ‘I Didn’t Know a Soul’

Connie Britton is getting candid about her previous move to Tennessee after years of living in California. 

The White Lotus alum, 58, opened up about how difficult the move was for her at the time as she was also navigating life as a new mom to her now 14-year-old son Yoby, she explained in an interview for this month's cover of Parade. 

While she had relocated to the south in 2012 for her role as Rayna Jaymes in the AMC drama Nashville, Britton didn't anticipate the challenges she would face after having just adopted her son from Ethiopia.

“I didn't know a soul,” Britton said of living in Nashville at the time. “[I] started working 16-hour days, 18-hour days, and had this little baby at home and was like, ‘Ahhhh.’ It was kind of ‘crisis mode’ a little bit because I didn't know what I was doing, and I really didn't have people to rely on.”

She added that because living in a new city as a single mom was a hard transition for her at first, she eventually had to seek some help. 

“I went into [that chapter of my life] a little bit blindly, not really fully anticipating what it is to be a single mom and how difficult that is, and what you're taking on in doing that,” she said. 

Britton, whose new movie The Life List is out March 28, noted, "I had a stay-at-home nanny. So I realized, 'Oh my gosh, at least I have help.'"

The actress' decision to adopt her son came after she traveled to Ethiopia in the early 2000s for a documentary about the country’s orphan population.

Years later, she asked herself, "What am I waiting for?" and came to the realization that she wanted to be a mom despite being single at the time. 

"I know that I hadn't achieved the kind of partnership that I was looking for to have a spouse and a child together," Britton shared. "And so I thought, 'This is the time, I'm going to start the adoption process.'"

In October 2024, Britton opened up to PEOPLE about her first year as a new mom after welcoming her son Yoby.

"When I first had my son, I feel like I didn't look in the mirror for a year, other than when I was working at the time," she previously told PEOPLE. "So I feel like I didn't even wear makeup at the time. It just all goes by the wayside."

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. 

Years after settling into life as a single mom, Britton began dating her now-partner David Windsor in 2019.

The star noted to Parade how her relationship with Windsor has lifted her up in all aspects of her life — including motherhood and in her career. 

“What I was really looking for was a partnership where there's constant growth, on both sides, and a sort of deepening of each other,” she said. “It's not just like, ‘Oh, I found true love.’ It's that I found somebody who I can walk on a journey with that is going to be constantly ever-changing.”