George Clooney Really Did Give Each Of His 14 Closest Friends $1 Million In Cash
Other than allegedly receiving the odd blow-jibber from an accused pedophile and possibly profiting from child labor, George Clooney’s reputation as “one of the good ones” has remained largely intact. Everyone knows him as a roguish prankster and a “guy’s guy” who’s always there for a friend in need. Back in 2017 George’s BFF and Casamigos partner Rande Gerber helped to perpetuate the Clooney mythology by telling a story about the time George gave 14 of his best friends, collectively known as “The Boys,” briefcases filled with $1 million in cash. According to a new GQ interview, George had never confirmed or denied that story— until now. Turns out it’s true. Honestly, I’d rather hear him dish about the Ghislaine jibber, but I guess that wouldn’t really be on-brand.
George says that in 2013, right after Gravity came out, he realized he was very, very rich (but not as rich as he would become after that Casamigos check hit, boiii!) but was probably going to die alone. That’s when he thought about The Boiiis, and how they helped him over the years as he was coming up. Apparently, George was at some point in his life broke, borrowing money and sleeping on 14 different dudes’ couches. via GQ:
But in 2013, he didn’t yet have a family, nor any real idea or hope that someday he would. “And I thought, what I do have are these guys who’ve all, over a period of 35 years, helped me in one way or another. I’ve slept on their couches when I was broke. They loaned me money when I was broke. They helped me when I needed help over the years. And I’ve helped them over the years. We’re all good friends. And I thought, you know, without them I don’t have any of this. And we’re all really close, and I just thought basically if I get hit by a bus, they’re all in the will. So why the fuck am I waiting to get hit by a bus?”
I’ve let plenty of broke dudes mooch off me in my life and ain’t one of them had the common courtesy to not piss all over the bathroom floor let alone remember me in their living will. I knew I should have been associating with a better class of low-life, but you take what you can get. The Boys hit the jackpot as soon as Clooney figured out how to get his hands on $14 million in cash.
The next step was how do you lay hands on $14 million in cash? And Clooney did some research, and what he found was that in downtown Los Angeles, in an undisclosed location, there is a place you can go, “and they have giant pallets of cash.” So Clooney got an old beat-up van that said “Florist” on it, like he was in a heist movie, and he drove downtown, and he got in an elevator with the florist’s van, and he took the van down to the vault and loaded it up with cash. He told no one but his assistant “and a couple of security guys that were shitting themselves. And we brought it up, and I bought 14 Tumi bags, and then I packed in a million bucks, cash, which isn’t as much as you think it is, weight-wise, into these Tumi bags.”
Jesus, what a stunt queen. George even had an elaborate plan for distributing the cash.
The next day he had all his friends come over. “And I just held up a map and I just pointed to all the places I got to go in the world and all the things I’ve gotten to see because of them. And I said, ‘How do you repay people like that?’ And I said, ‘Oh, well: How about a million bucks?’ And the fun part about it was: That was the 27th, the 28th of September. A year later, on the 27th of September, just by happenstance, was the day I got married.”
I’m not sure George’s wife Amal Clooney thinks that part is so cute given that George actually did eventually get hit by a bus (OK a car) and she didn’t see a dime! Anyway…
Here are some shots from George’s GQ spread.
Pic: Wenn.com