Image Credit: James Veysey/Shutterstock
George Clooney, 62, is the proud papa of two children: Alexander and Ella Clooney. The actor’s twins were born in 2017, less than three years into his marriage to his wife, Amal Clooney, 45. George was 56 years old when he welcomed his baby boy and girl into the world, and he’s been a loving, hands-on dad ever since.
When asked if he’s ever concerned about being an older father while speaking to Hoda Kotb on TODAY in October 2022, he quickly replied with his charming sense of humor. “I kind of like the idea of being sort of out of it when my daughter starts to date,” he said before acting out a potential situation. “Papa, I want you to meet [this guy]. He’s a drummer in a band,” he said, pretending to be Ella. “What? I like toast,” he replied, pretending to be “out of it.”
George opened up about what being a dad to twins has taught him in a sit-down interview on Good Morning America in December 2023. “When you have twins and you’re raising [them] the same time, the same way, and they’re completely different human beings, you realize how little say you have in who they are,” he said in a preview shared with People. “You try to give them some boundaries and you try to give them things that you believe in, but they’re just different.”
As fans know, there was quite a bit of time when George thought he might never become a father. However, meeting Amal changed all of that. Read on to learn how that happened and about the A-list couple’s two children.
George & Amal Clooney’s Relationship
For years, George Clooney was one of the most sought-after men in Hollywood. He was famously in a relationship with actress Kelly Preston for two years in the late 80s before marrying his first wife, Talia Balsam, in 1989. They were together for four years before splitting in 1993. In the years that followed, George dated a number of famous women, including Cameron Diaz, Renee Zellweger, Krista Allen, Linda Thompson, Elisabetta Canalis, and Stacy Keibler. However, none of these gorgeous ladies were able to get him to settle down.
In September 2013, George attended a fundraiser, where he met Amal for the first time through a mutual friend. Despite their 17-year age difference, the two hit it off thanks to their mutual interests. Right off the bat, Amal was very different than most of George’s famous exes — after all, she was a humanitarian rights lawyer, not a celebrity. Shortly after the pair’s first meeting, they sparked romance rumors when they were spotted out at dinner together.
After that, Amal and George were inseparable. “There is no question that having Amal in my life changed everything for me, no question about that,” George gushed to CBS Mornings in November 2020. “It was the first time that everything that she did and everything about her was infinitely more important than anything about me.” By April 2014, just six months after they met, the humanitarian and Tomorrowland actor were engaged.
George and Amal Clooney hit the red carpet together. (James Veysey/Shutterstock)
However, the proposal didn’t go exactly how George planned. In fact, he called it a “horrible moment,” because Amal was not expecting the situation at all. When he led her to the engagement ring he had hidden, it actually took her quite some time to say yes. “She kept looking at the ring and looking at me,” George revealed during a 2016 appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “We now know [how long it actually took] because there was a playlist — and it was 25 minutes! I finally said, ‘I hope the answer is yes, because I’m 52 and I could throw my hip out pretty soon.’ And she said ‘Yes,’ so it worked out.”
George and Amal tied the knot on September 27, 2014 at Ca’Farsetti, a palace in Italy. The wedding was a small affair, with only 105 guests in attendance. Before he married Amal, George was publicly pretty adamant that he would never be a married man again, but that obviously all changed when he met the gorgeous lawyer. “I was [always] like, ‘I’m never getting married, I’m not gonna have kids,”” George recalled to GQ in 2020. “‘I’m gonna work, I’ve got great friends, my life is full, I’m doing well.’ And I didn’t know how un-full it was until I met Amal. And then everything changed. And I was like, ‘Oh, actually, this has been a huge empty space.’”
For the most part, George and Amal are a fairly private couple. However, over the years, they’ve attended a number of high-profile events together. From the Met Gala to the Golden Globe Awards and Cannes Film Festival, George and Amal have walked all of the most prestigious red carpets as a couple.
Ella & Alexander Clooney
The most important moment of their relationship, though, happened in 2017. Amal gave birth to the pair’s twin children — daughter, Ella Clooney, and son, Alexander Clooney — on June 6, 2017. News of Amal’s pregnancy broke on a February 2017 episode of The Talk. Julie Chen shared the news with fans, and later explained, “My husband and I saw George and Amal almost three weeks ago and they casually mentioned that they were expecting twins. We were like, ‘Is it a secret?’ and George kind of went, ‘No.’ But we didn’t feel right telling anybody.”
George and Amal Clooney out with daughter Ella. (CIAOPIX / FREZZA LAFATA / BACKGRID)
Alexander is the older of the twins, as he was born minutes before his sister, Ella. Alexander was born at 12:54 p.m., while Ella arrived two minutes later, at 12:56 p.m. However, George recently revealed that Ella is the “more assertive” of the two. His mother-in-law, Baria Alamuddin, confirmed that to be the case. “She’s only two years old and she’s already the most powerful girl in the whole family,” Baria told HELLO! magazine. “She’s just determined and knows what she wants.”
Of course, finding out that he was having twins was quite a shock for George. “I was up for ONE,” he joked during the CBS This Morning interview. “I’m like, ‘I’m old!’ All of a sudden, it’s two, and I literally … it’s hard to get me to not talk, and I just stood there for, like, 10 minutes, just staring at this piece of paper. But I’m so glad they have each other.”
George and Amal have made a point to keep their children out of the public eye. They have not willingly shared photos of them, and they’ve done their best to shield Ella and Alexander’s faces from paparazzi cameras while out in public. However, George has opened up about the little ones in interviews on various occasions, so fans have gotten some insight into what their life is like.
In 2019, George revealed that Ella and Alexander were bilingual babies, despite just being two years old at the time. “They’ve obviously got my wife’s brains,” he told Ellen DeGeneres. “They’re not quite two, and they can count to 20 in English and Italian.”
Later in 2022, George joked that teaching his children two languages was a “terrible mistake” while he and Amal sat down for a chat with Gayle King. “We taught them Italian, but we don’t speak Italian,” explained. “So we’ve armed them with a language they can harm us with. And we both don’t really know what they’re saying.” He also said they’ve learned French as well.
After the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, George also confirmed that Alexander suffers from asthma. He admitted that the Clooney family didn’t leave their spacious compound during the COVID lockdown due to Alexander’s health condition. “They say it’s not so bad on young people, but do we know that?” George wondered in an interview with The Guardian. “We don’t know anything about the longterm of this yet.”
Amal Clooney and George Clooney walk the red carpet together. (James Veysey/Shutterstock)
Although George has said that having twins is a handful, he confirmed that Ella and Alexander are “good kids” in a 2019 interview with the TODAY Show. “They really came out with the personalities that they’re born with,” he said. “They’re just completely different personalities, and they’re fun and smart. I mean, they can already do all their ABCs in Italian and English!” However, he told W magazine in 2021 that the “kids are slobs,” which has him doing laundry and dishes more often than ever before.
Even though George was in his 50s when he became a father, he recently admitted that he wouldn’t have had it any other way. “I found the right person to have them with,” he said on the TODAY Show in March 2021. He added, “There are some people, their goal was [to have children]. Mine wasn’t. I wasn’t looking at life going, ‘My life will be unfulfilled without children.’ I felt like I had a pretty full life. Then I met Amal and I realized that my life had been pretty empty. And when you throw these two kids in there, suddenly you realize how incredibly empty it was.”
While appearing at the 2023 Albie Awards, George and Amal revealed to Access Hollywood that the twins took a liking to heavy metal music. The actor even added that they’ve become “headbangers.”
Will George & Amal Have More Kids?
In July 2021, it was reported by a tabloid magazine that George and Amal were expecting their third child together. However, their representative shut down the rumors, confirming that the speculation is “not true.” George and Amal have not publicly revealed whether or not they plan to have more children, but a source previously told Us Weekly that it’s a “never say never situation.”
