It’s official: Not everybody’s a George Clooney fan.
The annual meeting of Time Warner shareholders in Atlanta on Friday somehow managed not to be soul-drainingly boring for a few minutes, when an unhinged female shareholder launched into a lengthy rant about George Clooney and his wife, attorney Amal Alamuddin.
“I have a compensation question … How much have we paid George Clooney for ‘Gravity’ and ‘Argo?’” the shareholder asked Time Warner chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes, before unspooling a scatter-shot jeremiad with xenophobic overtones.
“How much money went to Amal Alamuddin, a foreign fiancée and spouse? To her family, to Lebanon, to the mayor of Rome to officiate at the wedding? To Arab contractors to renovate his home in London? Are there violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act?”
The shareholder added, “His marriage to a 37-year-old Lebanese lawyer is problematic at best.”
The woman flung criticism at Alamuddin for representing Muammar Gaddafi’s chief of intelligence at trial, and took particular exception to Clooney marrying Alamuddin “on the Saturday after Rosh Hashanah.”
She also complained that George Clooney‘s attractive, successful and probably-younger-than-her wife has been called “sexy” by some.
“Ms. Alamuddin has been portrayed in the press as a sexy, international civil rights lawyer. She is not. She is a criminal lawyer. A defense attorney who puts the worst tyrants back on the streets,” the woman said.
Bewkes eventually tried to rein in the proceedings.
“Excuse me. We cannot allow this meeting to be the place where personal and political views from any of us are expressed,” Bewkes said. “If you have a question, would you please restate what your question is.”
“I would like to know how much Mr. Clooney has received, how much money is going to Lebanon and to his wife,” the shareholder responded.
Bewkes replied by essentially telling her that it’s none of her — or his, for that matter — business how Clooney spends his money.
“In terms of what any of our actors, directors, writers make as citizens of the United States, they’re free to spend their money where they choose, and it is not something that our company has any influence over, or power about, nor do we have knowledge of it, and we should not further detour this meeting to discuss those matters,” said Bewkes.