Belinda Carlisle left America because she didn't want to live out her final years at a "country club".

The 63-year-old singer/songwriter lived in France for 25 years before moving to Thailand with husband Morgan Mason and has revealed the reason they decided to up sticks and leave Los Angeles behind.

Speaking to the Metro newspaper, she said: "We went to a big gala dinner in a country club in LA. I looked around at all the tables and I thought, 'Oh my God, is this where it all ends? At a country club in LA? No thanks.'

"We'd always had fantasies of living in the south of France.

"We'd read tons of Peter Mayle books, including 'A Year In Provence'.

"My son was born on the first day of the LA riots in 1992 so we just knew we wanted to get out."

And she says that after living in France they tried to move back to the US but soon realised they couldn't adapt.

She added: "We lived in France for 25 years.

"My son left to go back to Los Angeles so my husband and i thought it was time to go home to America too.

"We went for five years but we just could not adjust.

"A friend of ours lived in Thailand and said, 'Just come and check it out.'

"We went to Bangkok and just fell in love with it."

And having battled a drink and drug addiction in the past Belinda believes she would have "killed somebody" or "been in prison" had she not got sober.

The Go-Go's singer said: "In my early days of sobriety, my sponsor made me make a list of the 20 ways I had been protected during my crazy years and I really should have been in prison at the very least!

"Or in an asylum, or I'd have killed somebody. I'm lucky to be here."