CULTURE

George Clooney Reveals The Exact Moment He and Amal Decided to Have Children

by Carolyn Twersky

 George Clooney and Amal Clooney attend "The Tender Bar" Premiere
Samir Hussein/WireImage

For years, George Clooney was one of the most eligible bachelors in Hollywood, it seemed like no one could tie him down. In fact, George just admitted he never even planned to get married or start a family. Of course, then along came Amal. The actor recently opened up about his decision to take a different path after meeting his now-wife and how his kids have reshaped his feelings about the future.

“Listen, I didn’t want to get married. I didn’t want to have kids,” George told Marc Maron on his podcast, WTF with Marc Maron. “And then this extraordinary human being walked into my life and I just fell madly in love. Then I knew from the minute I met her that everything was going to be different.”

For a year, George and Amal enjoyed their marriage just the two of them until one day, Amal brought up the subject of kids after the pair visited friends with young children. “She said, ‘We are awfully lucky in life.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, we are lucky we found each other,’” George recalled. “She said, ‘Seems like that luck should be shared with some other folks.’” Amal expressed her interest in trying, which George said made for an emotional moment. “I really was convinced that wasn’t my lot in life and was comfortable with that.”

Of course, as we know, George and Amal did have kids, and their now 4-year-old twins Ella and Alexander were born in 2017. George said he’s so happy to have twins, explaining he was glad they had each other during the pandemic. After the actor turned 60 in May, though, he has been thinking about his future and his family more. Both George and Amal have very intense jobs, and he revealed the pair have discussed pulling back a little in order to spend more time with Elle and Alexander.

"We're working a lot, both of us,” he said. “She's working a tremendous amount as well. I just said, it doesn't mean we don't do a job because we gotta do a job. If you don't have a job, you're dead.” While George is “committed to a certain amount of work,” in about a year both he and Amal will start to slow down.

“It doesn't mean she's going to stop taking the cases that she wants, it just means she's not going to take six,” he said. “And I'm not going to do four jobs a year, I'm going to do one." He continued, “We're going to spend time with our kids and we're gonna travel again. We have a house with a lake and a rope swing. I can still do the rope swing at 60, I'm not sure about 80. I might shit myself when I grab the rope."