Formerly known as a committed bachelor, George Clooney fell hard for human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin after meeting in Italy.
George and Amal did not discuss starting a family during their short courtship, but they have an excellent reason for doing so after they wed.
Amal was spotted in Europe lending her voice to an important cause – sharing her insights as a lawyer and mother.
Save for a short-lived marriage to actress Talia Balsam in his youth, George Clooney was the poster boy for the eternal bachelor in Hollywood.
The tabloid reporters sold millions of copies of their rags, reporting on his relationships with models and one notable fling with a professional wrestler.
All that changed when he met Amal Alamuddin, a human rights activist 17 years his junior, in Lake Como, Italy, in July 2013.
The Academy Award-winning actor thought the British legal mind was beautiful, funny, and intelligent but suspected she might consider him “too old” for her.
The duo formed a pen pal-type correspondence over email, mostly sharing details about their lives. George told The Hollywood Reporter in a 2017 profile, “Over a period of time, it became clear we were more than just friends.”
Their first date was at the legendary Abbey Road Studios, where he worked on the “Monuments Men” score. Paparazzi swamped their dinner afterward, but she “handled it like a champ,” the Hollywood actor recounted proudly.
The relationship picked up quickly, with the pair spending Christmas in Cabo San Lucas and going for a safari in Kenya, where they spent time at Giraffe Manor. It was sentimental, too, as Amal’s favorite animal is a giraffe.
The “ER” actor showed a friend a photo of the lawyer with the giraffes in February 2014 and declared, “I think I’m going to ask her to marry me,” and promptly began to plan the engagement.
On the evening of April 28, 2014, George cooked Amal “pasta of some form” on her visit to the US. Over champagne, he popped the question with a specially curated playlist of his late aunt Rosemary Clooney’s songs playing in the background. He recounted:
“And she just kept staring at the ring, going, ‘Oh, my God.’ It was 20 minutes of me on my knee, waiting for her to say yes because she was so shocked.”
The only doubt George had about his paramour’s delayed response was that she might have thought “it was too soon.” They had only been dating for six months.
He did not question that they were the “right team” and were happy together from the start. The star mused, “I’m sorry I was 50-something when it happened, but only because I could have spent even more time with...
