Celebrity Friends
George Clooney revealed that he gifted 14 of his friends $1 million each - here’s why
The actor told the story in a recent GQ interview.
George Clooney holds many titles - actor, husband to international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, father, and a good friend or should we say a very generous friend. The 61-year-old actor recently disclosed a time that he went out of his way for his friends by giving them a very thoughtful gift.
In a recent interview with GQ, which crowned the actor the Icon of the Year, Clooney told the story of a time when he gifted his friends money. The “Ocean’s Eleven,” actor picked up $14 million in cash from a warehouse to surprise his 14 friends with $1 million each several years ago. This isn’t the first time this story has been disclosed, although it is the first time Clooney has publicly talked about it. His friend, Rande Gerber shared the story on MSNBC in 2017, according to CNN.
In the interview, Clooney said at the time of the gifting he was appearing in “Gravity,” the 2013 thriller movie alongside Sandra Bullock. The movie wasn’t expected to be a blockbuster hit so Clooney said he was given “percentages of the movie” in lieu of a salary, according to CNN. “Gravity” surprisingly did do really well in theaters so Clooney ended up making money from it, we’re talking a couple of million dollars. Seven years ago, Clooney was a bachelor without a wife or family so he decided to give the money away.
“And I thought, you know, without them I don‘t have any of this,” he said of his friends. ”And we’re all really close, and I just thought, basically, if I get hit by a bus, they’re all in the will. So why the f**k am I waiting to get hit by a bus?” he said in the interview.
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The 61-year-old actor told GQ that in order to pick up money, he drove a van to a downtown Los Angeles warehouse and then called his friends to come over to his house. “And I just held up a map and I just pointed to all the places I got to go in the world and all the things I‘ve gotten to see because of them,” he told GQ. ”And I said, ’How do you repay people like that?’ And I said, ’Oh, well: How about a million bucks?’” the actor revealed in the interview. We wish we were friends with Clooney!
