For the better part of the late ’90s and ’00s, George Clooney was considered to be one of Hollywood’s most notorious bachelors—that was until Amal Alamuddin came along.
And while we all dream of a relationship as supportive and committed as theirs, it seems like George didn’t always feel the same way about his future.
In a new interview for GQ‘s Icon of the Year issue, George spoke out about how meeting and falling in love with Amal turned his plans—or lack thereof—completely on its head.
“I was like, ‘I’m never getting married. I’m not gonna have kids,'” he started. “I’m gonna work, I’ve got great friends, my life is full, I’m doing well,” he said of his mindset at the time. “And I didn’t know how un-full it was until I met Amal. And then everything changed.”
Previously married to actress Talia Balsam from 1989 to 1993, George opened up about how his relationship with Amal, an accomplished international human-rights barrister, changed “everything” and made him finally settle down and start a family.
“I was like, ‘Oh, actually, this has been a huge empty space,’” he said. “I’d never been in the position where someone else’s life was infinitely more important to me than my own. You know? And then tack on two more individuals, who are small and have to be fed.”
As we know, George and Amal welcomed their twins, Alexander and Ella (who can also “speak fluent Italian”), back in 2017.
“For 36 years, I was the guy that if some kid popped up and started crying, I’d be like, ‘Are you f**king kidding me?’” George joked. “And now suddenly I’m the guy with the kid, you know?”
In the past, Amal has also opened up about how meeting George changed her life for the best. In an interview from 2018, Amal admitted:
“It felt like the most natural thing in the world,” she said of falling in love with George. “Before that experience, I always hoped there could be love that was overwhelming and didn’t require any weighing or decision-making.”
Continuing, she revealed that to her, love is “the one thing in life that I think is the biggest determinant of happiness, and it’s the thing you have the least control over.”
“Are you going to meet this person? I was 35 when I met him. It wasn’t obvious that it was going to happen for me. And I wasn’t willing or excited about the idea of getting married or having a family in the absence of that.”
