Why George Clooney gave $1 million each to 14 of his closest friends

President Barack Obama discusses the situation in Sudan with actor George Clooney during a meeting outside the Oval Office, Oct. 12, 2010. (Official White House Photo/Pete Souza)

Actor, director, and GQ Icon of the Year, George Clooney has finally confirmed that he once gave $1 million cash each, to 14 of his closest friends and is revealing for the first time why.

The story as reported by GQ, was first shared by Clooney’s good friend Rande Gerber on MSNBC in 2017 but Clooney never publicly commented on the story until his recent GQ interview.

“Amal and I had just met, but we weren’t dating at all,” he explained of the 2013 giveaway.  “I was a single guy. All of us were aging. I was 52 or something. And most of my friends are older than me.”

His movie, “Gravity” was just about to come out, “and because they didn’t want to pay us, they gave us percentages of the movie, ’cause they thought it was gonna be a flop, and that ended up being a very good deal,” he said.

“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 f**k am I waiting to get hit by a bus?” he said.

Getting the cash to his friends was no easy feat he said but after a bit of research, he found out that there was a place in downtown Los Angeles where he could get “giant pallets of cash.”

With the help and confidence of just his assistant “and a couple of security guys” Clooney was able to transport the cash in an old beat-up van that said “Florist” on it, like he was in a heist movie. The security guys he said “were sh**ting themselves.”

He then got 14 Tumi bags and packed them with $1 million each for his friends.

The following day he invited his friends over and surprised them all with the cash.

“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,” the 59-year-old star told GQ.

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