Everything George and Amal Clooney Have Said About Parenthood

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Everything George and Amal Clooney Have Said About Parenthood

Proud parents! Since welcoming twins Alexander and Ella in June 2017, George Clooney and Amal Clooney have candidly opened up about their children on multiple occasions. To fans' delight, the A-list couple isn’t afraid to share all the details about life as a family of four. The Up in the Air actor and the human rights lawyer first met while vacationing in Lake Como, Italy, in July 2013. After heading back to Italy for a fairytale wedding in September 2014, Us confirmed in February 2017 that Amal was pregnant. “The first thing you think is, ‘I hope I don’t screw this up.’ I mean, look, we are all responsible for things in life, and Amal and I are responsible for each other in a way — we look out for one another and we care about one another,” the actor told The Hollywood Reporter in September 2017 after his twins were born. “But you are really responsible for two kids. I want them to be happy. I want them to have a sense of humor. I want them to be interested in things. I want them to be compassionate about other people’s plights. Because that’s the thing, you know? You have to have some sort of empathy.” [sendtonews type="float" key="HJlIhPgMsh-2838696-14453"] Now that they’re a little older, however, the couple can be sure their children are growing up just fine. “They’re good kids,” the Oscar winner said on the Today show in May 2019. "They really come out with the personalities that they're born with. They're just completely different personalities, and they're fun and smart. I mean, they already can … do all their ABC’s in Italian and in English, and I can't do that in English.” The Lebanon native and the Argo actor “are pretty even about how they divide up the parenting responsibilities,” a source revealed exclusively to Us Weekly in April 2021, adding that George is always “doting” on the twins. “[He’s] always thinking of gestures to make them feel appreciated and reminding them that their mom’s the boss,” they said. As far as more kids go, “It’s a ‘never say never’ situation,” according to the insider. “[George is] happy with what he’s got and so is Amal.” For now, at least, George enjoys being viewed as cool by his kids. “They’re 5, so right now, I am golden,” he told Extra in December 2022. Amal confirmed his words by adding, “They say, ‘Papa can fix everything but the weather.’ He can solve all of their problems and is the funniest person they have met.” From jokes about barf to their twins’ first words, scroll through for the couple’s best quotes about parenthood: [podcast_block]

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Everything George and Amal Clooney Have Said About Parenthood

Proud parents! Since welcoming twins Alexander and Ella in June 2017, George Clooney and Amal Clooney have candidly opened up about their children on multiple occasions. To fans' delight, the A-list couple isn’t afraid to share all the details about life as a family of four. The Up in the Air actor and the human rights lawyer first met while vacationing in Lake Como, Italy, in July 2013. After heading back to Italy for a fairytale wedding in September 2014, Us confirmed in February 2017 that Amal was pregnant. “The first thing you think is, ‘I hope I don’t screw this up.’ I mean, look, we are all responsible for things in life, and Amal and I are responsible for each other in a way — we look out for one another and we care about one another,” the actor told The Hollywood Reporter in September 2017 after his twins were born. “But you are really responsible for two kids. I want them to be happy. I want them to have a sense of humor. I want them to be interested in things. I want them to be compassionate about other people’s plights. Because that’s the thing, you know? You have to have some sort of empathy.” [sendtonews type="float" key="HJlIhPgMsh-2838696-14453"] Now that they’re a little older, however, the couple can be sure their children are growing up just fine. “They’re good kids,” the Oscar winner said on the Today show in May 2019. "They really come out with the personalities that they're born with. They're just completely different personalities, and they're fun and smart. I mean, they already can … do all their ABC’s in Italian and in English, and I can't do that in English.” The Lebanon native and the Argo actor “are pretty even about how they divide up the parenting responsibilities,” a source revealed exclusively to Us Weekly in April 2021, adding that George is always “doting” on the twins. “[He’s] always thinking of gestures to make them feel appreciated and reminding them that their mom’s the boss,” they said. As far as more kids go, “It’s a ‘never say never’ situation,” according to the insider. “[George is] happy with what he’s got and so is Amal.” For now, at least, George enjoys being viewed as cool by his kids. “They’re 5, so right now, I am golden,” he told Extra in December 2022. Amal confirmed his words by adding, “They say, ‘Papa can fix everything but the weather.’ He can solve all of their problems and is the funniest person they have met.” From jokes about barf to their twins’ first words, scroll through for the couple’s best quotes about parenthood: [podcast_block]

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Cool Dad

While attending the Kennedy Center Honors in December 2022, Amal told Extra that she hopes they “can show our kids some of the things that have been said about [George] over the course of the weekend,” as the Tomorrowland actor was among the year’s prestigious honorees.

As for whether Alexander and Ella think their father’s accomplishments make him cool, George stated on the red carpet, “They’re 5, so right now, I am golden.” Amal agreed, adding, “They say, 'Papa can fix everything but the weather. He can solve all of their problems and is the funniest person they have met.”

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Eyes Closed!

During an October 2022 appearance on the Today show, the Ticket to Paradise star joked that he wasn't worried about missing certain milestones in his twins' lives as an older father. "I kind of like the idea of being sort of out of it when my daughter starts to date," George quipped before imitating his response to hypothetical news that Ella is dating a drummer. "I'm OK with that." 

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Helping Hands

George told The Guardian in December 2021 that he and Amal only have a part-time nanny because the lawyer thinks that being involved is “important,” adding, “We have a nanny four days a week and the rest of the time it's just us. And during lockdown it was just us – for a full year! I felt like my mother in 1964, doing dishes and six loads of laundry a day."

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Dialing It Back

"[Amal and I] have to rethink how we’re doing our lives,” George said on the “WTF With Marc Maron” podcast in November 2021. "We’re working a lot, both of us. She’s working a tremendous amount as well. It doesn’t mean we don’t do a job … but we also have to make sure we’re spending less time behind a computer or going on locations so that we can [be with our kids].” He subsequently described their plans to scale back, doing one project a year instead of four.

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LOL

The actor added that his twins are “funny” and make him laugh “every day.” He explained Marc Maron, "Alexander every morning [at] eight in the morning, bangs on my bedroom door. I go, 'Who is it?' And he goes, 'It is I, Alexander Clooney.’"

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Plot Twist

George reflected on previously not wanting to get married or have kids later in the November 2021 podcast appearance, saying, “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."

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Oops

“[Our kids] speak fluent Italian, but Amal and I do not,” George said during an October 2021 Daily Pop appearance. "That's a flaw in our logic, right there."

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Silly Siblings

George kept himself busy amid the coronavirus quarantine “teaching pranks” to his kids, Amal told Entertainment Tonight in October 2021. “We’ll see if it develops,” she joked.

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Best of the Best

George loves “everything” about fatherhood, he said during a March 2021 Today show appearance. “[It’s given me] a sense of belonging and a sense of home and unconditional love — all the things that you were hoping you could get from a really good career and a dog. You realize that this is a lot more than that,” he explained, adding that he's glad he “found the right person to have them with."

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Dad Jokes

George said in March 2021 that Amal disciplines him instead of their children because he teaches Alexander and Ella “terrible things.” The actor explained in a March 2021 Today With Hoda & Jenna appearance: "I really do enjoy teaching my children to do things that shock their mother. … She's like, 'Really? That's what they learned today?' And I'm like, 'Well, you know.’ The worst thing you can do is leave me alone with them for a long period of time."

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Chore After Chore

"I'll tell you what I've taken on as a hobby: two or three loads of laundry a day, dishes all f--king day because these kids are all slobs,” George told W magazine in February 2021 amid the coronavirus pandemic. "Apparently, you have to wash your children every once in a while."

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Better Safe Than Sorry

"I haven’t cut my daughter’s hair,” George told W magazine in February 2021. "I’d get in trouble if I did. If I screw up my son’s hair, he’ll grow out of it. But my wife would kill me if I touched my daughter’s hair."

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So Sneaky

George told Stephen Colbert in December 2020 that he gets his twins to stay “well-behaved” by pretending to be Santa Claus. "When they’re asleep in the morning — they sleep in the same bedroom — they start to make noises, and you can hear the two of them getting at each other," the actor explained. "I stand outside the door and I go, ‘Oh hi Santa!’ And then you hear Santa is there and he’s like, ‘Ho ho ho!’ And I say, ‘What are you doing here, Santa?’ And he says, ‘Oh, I’m just making sure that the kids are being good kids.’ And you can hear them going, ‘We are Santa! We are!’"

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Coping Mechanism

George joked in December 2020 that he “drinks, mostly” to "get through" quarantine with his two kids.

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Better Safe Than Sorry

George told The Guardian in December 2020 that his family hadn’t left their property since March amid the COVID pandemic, explaining, “My son has asthma. They say it’s not so bad on young people. But do we know that? We don’t know anything about the long term of this yet.”

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Bilingual Babies

"We did a really dumb thing, which is, they speak fluent Italian,” the actor, 59, said of Alexander and Ella during a December 2020 Jimmy Kimmel Live! appearance. "I mean fluent Italian at 3. But I don't speak Italian, my wife doesn't speak Italian, so we've armed them with a language."

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Late in Life

"There are times where [the kids] say, 'OK, now we are going to hop like a frog all the way to bed,' and I am like, 'I will hop a few. I don't know if I can go all of the way to the bedroom,’” Clooney told Entertainment Tonight in December 2020 ahead of his 60th birthday.

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Mixed Feelings

George is “so glad” his two “knucklehead” kids have each other, although he was nervous ahead of the twins’ birth, he said during a November 2020 appearance on CBS Sunday Morning. "I was up for one, you know? Because I'm old. All of a sudden it's, like, two? You know, it's hard to get me to not talk. And I just stood [at Amal's ultrasound appointment] for, like, 10 minutes, just staring at this piece of paper going, 'Two,' silently."

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Sweet Sacrifice

“My daughter is sick, as happens apparently with children, I didn't know this," Clooney joked on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in June 2019. "So at 2:30, she woke us up on my birthday, and then at 4:30 in the morning. So then we put her in the bed, which you have to do because she's crying and she's unhappy. Then she takes over the bed. And then I realized that's no good, so I covered all around the bed with pillows like a bouncy castle in case she falls off, and I went and slept in her nursery."

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They’ve Got the Looks!

Clooney gushed about his little ones while out to dinner with friends in Los Angeles in June 2018, and even took out his cell phone to show new photos. “George told a funny story about how he and Amal have to keep the toilet seat down for the twins’ sake and then he started showing his friends photos of them,” an eyewitness told Us Weekly at the time. “George teased that the babies are like models and he never has to show them how to pose because they do it so naturally. He seemed like the proudest parent and just couldn’t stop showing photos and talking about how much he loves the kids.”

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Always Kidding Around

George opened up exclusively to Us Weekly about their twins’ 1st birthday while attending the taping of his AFI Life Achievement Award Tribute special in L.A. on June 7, 2018. “Well, the kids got drunk. I don't know what you guys were doing, but I came home, they had a bottle of booze,” he said. “It was really embarrassing, but they're feeling better today.”

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Jokes on George

“I just have to clean the barf off of my tux. It used to be my barf but now it’s the twins’ barf. So it all works out,” George quipped to the Associated Press in August 2017. “I really didn’t think at 56 that I would be the parent of twins. Don’t make plans. You always have to just enjoy the ride.”

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Super Mom

“Suddenly, you’re responsible for other people, which is terrifying. She’s like an Olympic athlete. She’s doing so beautifully,” the Up in the Air actor gushed to the AP in August 2017.

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Total Responsibility 

“The first thing you think is, ‘I hope I don’t screw this up.’ I mean, look, we are all responsible for things in life, and Amal and I are responsible for each other in a way — we look out for one another and we care about one another,” George told The Hollywood Reporter in September 2017. “But you are really responsible for two kids. I want them to be happy. I want them to have a sense of humor. I want them to be interested in things. I want them to be compassionate about other people’s plights. Because that’s the thing, you know? You have to have some sort of empathy.”

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Diaper Duty

“I’m a very good diaper guy, which I didn’t expect,” the Oscar winner revealed to The Hollywood Reporter in September 2017.

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Meet Alexander

"They start out with a personality right off the bat … [Alexander] is a thug already,” George told Entertainment Tonight in September 2017 of his son, who is two minutes older than his daughter. “You saw him … He's a moose! Literally, he just sits and he eats." 

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All About Ella 

"She's very elegant, and all eyes,” the proud dad raved to ET in September 2017. “She looks like Amal, thank god."

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What’s in a Name?

“We just didn't want to have really dumb names …We figured these kids are going to be looked at a lot and watched and [have their] every move sort of judged, and we wanted them to at least have a break with the names,” George explained to ET in September 2017. “So we looked for some sort of normal names. We didn't have any great inspiration. It wasn't Alexander the Great and Ella Fitzgerald."

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The Fear Factor 

“Listen, I’m scared to death, it’s terrifying,” the ER alum said during an October 2017 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! “You’re afraid of breaking them. They’re so little.”

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Polar Opposites

“Ella is very elegant and dainty … [Alexander] laughs louder than anyone in the room, it’s the funniest thing,” George told Extra in October 2017.

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First Words

"We've had some 'Mamas' and 'Dadas,’” Amal dished to Vogue in April 2018. “George was very careful to ensure that 'Mama' was the first word.”

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Nursing Queen 

"He's quite a healthy eater … Between six and eight in the morning we get to have them in our bed—I don’t schedule any calls before eight,” the human rights layer told Vogue in April 2018. “When I was nursing, it was much more complicated, because there are two. I had all manner of weird cushions and pillows and machines.” 

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Up to Date

"They're good kids," Clooney said of Alexander and Ella on the Today show in May 2019. "They're happy kids. They laugh a lot. They do pranks already. Put peanut butter on their shoes, so that it looks like poo-poo on their shoes and stuff, and they think that's funny.”

He added: "They really come out with the personalities that they're born with. They're just completely different personalities, and they're fun and smart. I mean, they already can … do all their ABC’s in Italian and in English, and I can't do that in English.”

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Darling and Distinct

“They have their own personalities,” the Golden Globe winner winner told Ellen DeGeneres in May 2019. “He goes outside and hugs my car. … My daughter’s in my wife’s closet with purses going, ‘Mine,’ so I see this is going to be a fun, fun life for me.”

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Loving Life

“I have a pretty good life,” the actor gushed on the “Awards Chatter” podcast in May 2019. “I have a beautiful wife and two beautiful kids, and I get to work on things I want to work on. I have to say, most people don't get to do that. I'm well aware of it.”

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Normal Names

“I didn’t want, like, weird-ass names for our kids,” George told AARP in January 2021. “They’re already going to have enough trouble. It’s hard being the son of somebody famous and successful.” He added that Alexander has an advantage because by the time he starts to feel competitive, his dad will be "gumming bread."

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A Parenting Update

In September 2022, the couple opened up about their children's milestones. “Our son is now a big prankster,” Amal shared on CBS Mornings. “And you basically taught him these lessons and he's now pranking his dad back.”