GEORGE & AMAL IT’S OVER
October 22, 2018 George and Amal Clooney go their separate ways after four tumultuous years of marriage
It was their fourth wedding anniversar y. But ins t ead of sharing a candlelit dinner or watching a romantic movie at home on Sept. 27, George and Amal Clooney marked the special occasion by spending it 2,400 miles apart. While the human rights lawyer headed to NYC for the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly, her superstar husband lived it up with friends, including Rande Gerber, in LA. “The fact that they couldn’t manage to be in the same city and spend such an important day together,” notes an insider, “was writing on the wall.”
They were never a natural match, and over the years the well-known ladies’ man and cerebral London- bred attorney have fought about everything from where to live to George’s Hollywood lifestyle. These days, the parents of 16-month-old twins Ella and Alexander lead very separate lives: The last time they were e photographed to- gether was in It- aly way back on n Aug. 12. But t the couple are e more than just physically apart from each other. “I think they are over as a couple,” says the insider. In fact, Life & Style has exclusively learned that Amal, 40, blindsided d George, 57, by leaving him to go her own way on their anniversary. “It’s pretty cold, but Amal had had enough,” reveals a source. “There’s no prenup, so she’d be able to take him for everything and likely get full custody of the kids if they went through with a divorce. This would be one of the ugliest and priciest splits in Hollywood history.”
SQUARING OFF
Amal has plenty of experience in the courtroom — but this time, there’s at least half of George’s estimated $1 billion in assets at stake. “George is starting to feel like she used him just to promote her career and get her hands on his fortune,” says a friend. “The kids are the only thing they have in common.” That ’s why Ella and A l e x a nder could be a major part of any legal battle.
“I bet she would want primary custody,” says the insider. “The kids mean everything to George, though, and he wouldn’t rest until he had shared custody.” They weren’t a happy family of four for very long. George and Amal’s relationship took a turn for the worse earlier this summer, around the time the twins turned 1 in June. The pair, who met through mutual friends in Lake Como, Italy, in 2013, had put down roots at a $13 million, 17thcentury mansion on an island in the River Thames, 40 miles from London, and planned to raise their children there. But George grew restless with the slow, secluded lifestyle. “He really missed living in LA and Amal prefers living and raising their children in England,” says the source. “They fight about that constantly.”
To Amal, California represents everything she loathes. “She can’t stand the movie business and has never liked George’s friends,” says the insider. Others agree it’s a sore point for the Oxford University– educated beauty. “Amal can’t stand how ‘Hollywood’ George can be and how he still loves his Alist pals,” says the friend.
“She thinks they’re fake with nothing below the surface.”
George never gelled with Amal’s crowd, either. “He’s told Amal how pretentious she can be and insists they can’t always be surrounded by barristers and top political thinkers,” says the friend. “That’s led to more arguments because they can’t agree on their social circle and they both hate hanging out with each other’s friends.”
Their differences were on full display at Prince Harry ’ s wedding to Meghan Markle. Following the May 19 ceremony at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, “You could cut the tension between them
with a knife,” says another confidant. “George was drinking and having a blast as he socialized with Harry’s friends, unlike Amal who was uptight and unfriendly. Amal got really upset when Meghan brought up how Harry changed for the better after they got engaged. The sad thing is, Amal thought she could change George.”
CLASH OF EGOS
She did, to an extent. The former playboy, who dated everyone from wrestler Stacy Keibler to Italian actress Elisabetta Canalis to cocktail waitress Sarah Larson, had vowed to never marry or have kids. (He was wed once, to actress
Talia Balsam, from 1989 to 1993.) “I haven’t had aspirations in that way, ever,” he once said about starting a family. And while Amal got George to put a ring on her left hand and have children, that’s where her influence ended.
After the children were born, she tried to put George on a leash — with no luck. “Once George became a dad, Amal put her foot down and instilled all these new rules, even giving him a curfew,” says a second source. “She didn’t want George out late with his friends, coming home late and waking up the twins.” Boozing, smoking and riding his scooter — which he was thrown from in July
when a car cut the Ocean’s Eleven star off — made her no-no list, too. “It’s a lot for George,” says the second source. “He went from being a lifelong bachelor to having a wife and two kids.”
His recent decision to expand his annual Halloween party from one night to two caused more problems. George, who founded the Casamigos tequila brand with pal Rande (Cindy Crawford’s husband), made Amal “furious” with that move, according to the second source: “She told George to quit acting like America’s No. 1 frat boy and concern himself with more weighty issues like human rights and the world political scene rather than party-planning.”
Amal had an ulterior motive by guilting him into staying home: keeping him away from other women. “She’s been particularly insecure since the birth of the twins,” says the insider, who adds that she was jealous of Julie Ann Emery, George’s beautiful 43-year-old co-star on the upcoming Catch-22 series for Hulu. “She has lit into George about their friendship and on-set flirting.” She’d also chastised him at the royal wedding, the insider says, for getting too close to Meghan’s friend, actress Priyanka Chopra.
Her nagging had George at the end of his rope. “When she’s angry or dis- pleased, Amal can be cold, controlling and demanding,” says the insider. “She has a way of making George feel like a scolded teenager. And it can send him running for the door.” But now Amal has locked it behind him. “George and Ama l never thought it would come to this,” says the insider. “But friends think divorce may be inevitable.”