Born and raised in the haze and heat of Los Angeles and a survivor of the voracious appetite of the world's most popular soap opera, Moss has chosen to edge away from the the epicentre of entertainment.

He quit The Bold and the Beautiful in 2012 after an incredible 25 years playing fan favourite Ridge Forrester. And it's only now he's prepared to talk about the real reason he did leave. (More on that in a moment.)

Moss moved out of Los Angeles, just ever so slightly, but enough to make a difference, to Ventura County to the north.

And while he is about to embark on a tour of Australia performing his music and telling stories about his life and career, Moss seems very happy to have said goodbye to Hollywood.

When asked how someone survives sane and healthy for so long in Tinsel Town, Moss is blunt.

"You don't. Sane and Hollywood are not two things that go in the same sentence," he said.

"I always consider myself down-to-earth and I think that's why I moved the hell out of Hollywood.

"I grew up in Hollywood, I've been there most of my life and I moved out into a little bit of the countryside to get out of Hollywood and I can't stand going back. It's hard for me to go back.

"But the insanity of Hollywood has just gotten worse to me. So I separate myself."

It's not the Ronn Moss we're used to, this is someone a little more serious and introspective. We're more used to those tongue-in-check appearances on Rove when he'd joke about his ponchos and re-enact those suspenseful mid-distance stares on The Bold and the Beautiful.

He's still got that sense of humour. But it's as if freed from the shackles of Ridge Forrester he can be more himself, more candid.

So fill us in, how has Hollywood become more insane? Exactly.

"Oh, lots of ways. Politically, it's absolutely fricking insane," Moss said.

"And the insanity of showbusiness, it makes me not want to be a part of it, because of some of the people that are involved in it. And then I think of the creative aspects of it, and I go, 'Okay, I'm doing it for my own creative reasons but I'm not going to take all that bullshit that people go through with, with Hollywood'.''

"I don't want to talk too much about politics but there's a liberal insanity that has taken over Hollywood and for me, I'm sorry, but it is insanity. It defies logic, it defies human rationale. And I don't understand it."

Is he talking about the #MeToo movement?

"It's all of that. There's an insane sort of thing that's taken over," he said.

"And I know why it's happening but that would be far too long a conversation.... There's a force behind it that knows exactly what it's doing and everyone in Hollywood is falling for it.

"It's making them accuse everyone else of being racist and homophobic, whatever other adjectives you want to use, when they're actually the ones perpetuating it. I call it transference. Where you transfer to somebody else the very qualities that you are yourself projecting.

"But you transfer it to make sure everybody else is that way when, actually, it's you. That's kind of what's happening and it's happening on such a grand scale that I don't even want to go to Hollywood anymore." That much is clear.

When Moss left The Bold and the Beautiful, he suggested it was simply time. And salary issues. But there was much more to it.

"I pretty much left Bold and the Beautiful because I felt I couldn't continue to do it,'' he said.

"I was in a pretty bad car accident which really debilitated my ability to keep going with that show. I think I'll probably talk about this when I come there for my shows because people keep asking and they don't really know the real reason.''

The accident was in July, 2012, around the time he announced he was leaving The Bold and the Beautiful, a fixture of the soap since its inception in 1987.

"I kind of stayed mum about it because there was a legal aspect to it and the insurance. And I'm not one to complain, that's my problem. If I'd been one of the fricking complainers, then everyone would know, 'Oh, no, I was in an accident'," he said.

"I just kept that to myself because I didn't want to seem so much of a whinger. Is that an English term or is that an Australian term?

"I don't like doing that. My wife after the fact said, 'Why don't you tell people the real reason of what's going on?' and I was like, 'I don't want to whine about something like that'. I can't stand that."

The accident virtually made it impossible for Moss to keep acting with the show.

"We got whacked really hard and I was kind of the centre of the storm and fractured my shoulder in three places and it gave me a bit of a concussion and it made it hard for me to memorise all the fricking dialogue we had to do on the show," he said.

"And I was just struggling for the last two weeks struggling to get through it, going, 'What the fuck is going on with me?'. I lost all strength in my left hand, my left arm.

"And I went, 'Oh my God is this going to permanent? I don't know'. So a lot of things were compiling on me and I just went, 'I don't know if I can keep going on this show. I think I'm really at a loss here'. Because I'd never been in an accident before. I'd never had that experience before."

The accident, as terrible as it was - he and his wife Devin DeVasquez were hit at full force by another vehicle while their car was stationary - it was a catalyst for change.

"This was just a facilitator for me to go and do something different," he said

"The short story of it is, 'Things are thrown at you in life and you either pick up the ball and run with it or you try to fight against it'. And I wasn't going to fight against it, I was going to run.''

He's certainly not in retirement mood. Moss turned 67 on March 4, a birthday he celebrated just ahead of his departure to Australia. He is producing movies in Europe. Keeping an eye on his two adult daughters - the boyfriends have been vetted. And excited to keep working and concentrating on his music.

His show, called An Intimate Evening with Ronn Moss, will feature clips, stories and music from his career. He knew, at 11 years old, after watching The Beatles’ appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, that he wanted to play music, or be Ed Sullivan, or both.

His band Player had a No.1 hit with Baby Come Back and toured with the likes of Eric Clapton, Heart and The Little River Band.

Moss returns to Australia with his good friend, musician Jawn Star, performing alongside him, rather than a full band.

"We're going to do a very unplugged, very intimate, one-on-one thing with our Australian friends," he said.

Moss' Bold and the Beautiful co-star Katherine Kelly Lang is also a regular visitor to Australia and recently appeared in the local version of, I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! Would he consider doing that kind of show?

"Over the last four years, they've asked me three times to do it and it's never really worked out,'' he said.

Again, he says the car accident prevented him from doing I'm a Celebrity for Australian TV. It's a shame because, despite his more introspective musings, he seems like one Hollywood star who doesn't take himself too seriously.

"No, I definitely don't. And that's a trait I share with my Australian friends, just having a good sense of humour about things," he said.