It’s not hard to see why First Lady Michelle Obama is smitten with George Clooney.
In a joint interview with her husband, United States President Barack Obama, the 48-year-old mother-of-two opened up to Entertainment Tonight about their mutual friendship with the Descendants actor, 50.
Barack, 51, praised the politically active star for being “a wonderful guy,” but his wife took it a step further. “He’s cute, too!” Michelle laughed.
Oddly enough, Michelle never seems to be around when Clooney and her husband get together at the White House. “It’s a conspiracy,” Michelle joked. “All the meetings, I just happen to be busy.”
“Michelle is always frustrated because a lot of the events that George has been involved in, for some reason, she has something else going on,” Barack smiled.
The commander-in-chief added that when Clooney has popped by his office, the White House hallways seem busier than usual. “The couple of times he’s come to the White House, I noticed that the staff suddenly was circling around my office,” he said. “They’ve got memos they need to make sure I see right away.”
In all seriousness, however, “George is a low maintenance guy, as am I,” Barack insisted. “The truth is, we got to know each other because of a substantive issue. He is a terrific advocate on behalf of the people of Darfur and the people of Sudan who’ve been brutalized for a long time. When I was senator — this was well before I was president — that was an issue I was working on together on a bipartisan basis. George, who had traveled there, done documentaries there and was very well informed, came to testify in Congress. We got to know each other. He’s good man and a good friend.”
In May, Clooney hosted a fundraiser for Barack’s re-election campaign that reportedly generated nearly $15 million in donations. Despite their friendship, “He’s very protective about not bothering me. And he’s also sensitive to the fact that, you know, that if he’s around a lot, then somehow it’ll be tagged as ‘Obama hanging out with Hollywood stars,’ and that’s not who he is,” Barack told Entertainment Tonight. “But he’s a good person.”