How did George Clooney meet Amal? From first date to 7-carat engagement ring, here’s how actor's life changed
A few months ago, gossip birdies had established that there was trouble brewing in George Clooney and Amal Clooney's marriage. However, it appears that they were nothing but hearsay as the 'Midnight Sky' actor has revealed in a recent interview that having Amal in his life has had a major influence on him and for all the good reasons.
He told E!, "There is no question that having Amal in my life changed everything for me. No question. It was the first time that everything that she did and everything about her was infinitely more important than anything about me." But how did the once-eligible bachelor of Hollywood become a family man and go from not "ever talking about kids" to having two of his own?
Amal met Clooney's parents before they started dating
Amal Clooney Alamuddin is a Lebanese-British barrister, who has specialized in international law and human rights. She wasn't in any manner associated with the entertainment industry, but real-life romance had different plans for the couple. Amal and Clooney met at the actor's Lake Como home in 2013 through a mutual friend. During an appearance in 'My Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman', the actor said that before meeting Amal for the first time, his agent called him and said, "I met this woman who is coming to your house, who you’re going to marry."
And, guess what? Clooney's parents were visiting him at the time, so when Amal came home, she got to meet her future husband's parents much before the two even thought about dating. The chance meeting grew from friendship to romance as Clooney and Amal continued to keep in touch and wrote to each other. "She sent some pictures from when she was here, and we were writing each other, emailing, talking, mostly about what was going on in each other’s lives,” the actor recounts.
Things 'escalated' after the first date in London
Clooney met Amal for the first time in October 2013, when he invited her to visit him at the Abbey Road Studios. He described his first date as "That was a good first date. And pretty quickly, things escalated once I was in London." By April 2014, Clooney was ready to pop the question. He called Amal over for a homecooked dinner and finally got down on his knee. When he presented the 7-carat engagement ring, according to Clooney, Amal "kept staring at the ring, going, 'Oh, my God.' It was 20 minutes of me on my knee, waiting for her to say yes, because she was so shocked."
In less than a year since their first date in London, Clooney and Amal married in an intimate ceremony in Italy in September 2014 in the presence of close friends and family including Matt Damon, Cindy Crawford, and fellow celebrity couple John Krasinski and Emily Blunt.
Children were not a plan of the initial plan
George Clooney had once made his stance on fatherhood pretty clear. Reportedly, the couple had never spoken about having children of their own. But, things worked out miraculously for them and they were blessed with twins in 2017. They have named them Ella and Alexander.