You’re fab, Amal... but never make me cringe like that again
Rachel Johnson
MAYBE I’m jealous. OK, of course I’m jealous, but watching Amal Clooney in action in a bespoke, pastelpink Prada maxi-mini-dress at that Hollywood back-slapper last week I felt something was a little… off? She was there to support her husband George as he received a lifetime achievement award. Uber-glam wifey made a sweet speech, but as she shared her ‘few well-chosen words’, the back of my neck began to prickle.
She loved George, whose smile made her melt every time. ‘My love, what I have found with you,’ she told the equally besotted Tinseltown crowd, ‘is the great love I always hoped existed.’
I could live with this, even though it was OTT for my taste.
On the whole, I don’t go for public displays or statements of affection, and prefer people who grunt, ‘You’re not that bad either’ rather than bestow moist embraces and make sugary, flowery tributes to their love objects.
Anyway, Amal said she couldn’t sleep when they were apart (again, I am more likely to warm to a woman who confesses of her partner: ‘I can’t sleep when we’re together.’) After this she went in even harder, in case we hadn’t got the message that George was not just The One, he was Prince Charming and knight in shining armour, Christmas, birthday and Easter, all at once. ‘I met George when I was 35,’ she told the live-streamed ceremony, ‘and starting to become quite resigned to the idea that I was going to be a spinster.’ Noooo, Amal! Not this! Please don’t tell us you were poor Cinders. We all know you are a private school, Oxford-educated, international barrister and acknowledged beauty and you were only 35 when you met in his Lake Como palazzo. I’ve got Levi’s older than that! Not since Julia Roberts stood in front of Hugh Grant and pretended she was just an adorable girl asking a boy to love her have I heard such magnificent, manipulative tosh.
I must single out for close textual analysis in particular her choice of the word ‘spinster’ – picked to signal that she self-identified as a single pringle of ripening years condemned to being on the shelf till ol’ blue eyes came along and dusted her off. It’s nonsense, of course. I wish women wouldn’t do this.
Far better to own the fact that she is one of the most beautiful, celebrated, and deservedly successful women of our times, who couldn’t help stealing the show when she arrived dressed as a beanpole buttercup in Stella McCartney couture at last month’s royal wedding.
I wish that instead of spinning the Cinderella myth, she told the truth: that she worked hard to make it to here. She is a phenomenal woman: a human rights lawyer who has worked with Kofi Annan on Syria, who’s an activist for the persecuted Yazidi people and who’s done more for others than everyone I know put together. If anyone’s entitled to enjoy her happiness, she is.
She’s a working mother, A-list celebrity, clothes horse and model (she was photographed by Annie Leibovitz for the cover of US Vogue in May). It takes a lot of effort and money to look that fabulous and skinny
But she is so worried that women will hate her that she partly has to pretend it’s all been a Hollywood fairy tale. An accident.
It’s not, Mrs Clooney. You’ve got what you want – and what we all wanted too, but don’t mind us. You go right ahead and enjoy it.
Look at this picture of Kate Moss. Playsuit. No bra. Or, indeed, skirt or proper top. It’s clear she hasn’t decided to break all the boring rules for fortysomething dressing at once and on purpose. She is blithely unaware they even existed.