As I said last week, I’m not mad about George and Amal Clooney’s starf–ker game. The British establishment is one of the most insular caste systems in the world. George and Amal are awash in new money and prestige from their careers (Hollywood and legal) and they have the time, money and desire to buy their way into the British establishment. That’s exactly what they’re doing. That’s what they were doing when they sponsored Meghan and Harry’s wedding party through Casamigos Tequila. That’s what they were doing when Amal chipped in a big chunk of money for Meghan’s baby shower in New York. That’s what they were doing when they presumably gave a huge donation to the Prince’s Trust, all so they would be invited to Buckingham Palace (for the Prince’s Trust fundraiser). Apparently, the donation was so large that Amal is getting her name on something within the Prince’s Trust too. Initially, we heard it was going to be some kind of stand-alone initative or program. Nope – it’s going to be an “award.”
Youth charity Prince’s Trust International has launched a new global award celebrating the achievements of inspirational young women around the world. The Amal Clooney Award will highlight the work of young women who have succeeded against the odds to make a lasting difference in their communities. Amal will personally select one young winner to be presented with the award a year from now, in 2020.
The award will shine a light on the unsung heroes who are the driving force behind initiatives that are helping their communities to thrive. These could include anything from sustainable farming schemes, to community projects in refugee camps, to rebuild-work in war zones.
Amal Clooney says: “I am honoured to have been invited by Prince’s Trust International to participate in this global initiative celebrating young women who are change-makers in their communities. It is a privilege to be able to play a part in a project that will draw attention to incredible young women who are the future leaders of our world”.
The Amal Clooney Award is open to any young woman between 11 and 30 and is open to both those who have and have not been beneficiaries of The Prince’s Trust Group. More information can be found at www.princestrustinternational.org
Will the award actually come with a grant of money, or is it just an honorary thing to bring attention to what these young women are doing? I guess it depends on how much money the Clooneys are willing to spend on this. I mean… I think the whole idea of an “Amal Clooney Award” is rather gaudy and self-serving on her part. But I also think the concept of giving an actual award (and hopefully money) to outstanding young women is a great thing. As I said at the beginning, I don’t hate them for choosing to play the game. But I do hate them (a little bit) for making it seem like Prince Charles was so fascinated by Brilliant Barrister Unicorn Amal that he just had to make up an award in her name. No. George Clooney has been buying all of this sh-t for Amal ever since they started dating. And I mean that – George doesn’t really care if the British establishment accepts him. That’s HER thing, so he’s buying it for her.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
And people accuse Meghan of being a social climber. Geesh.
lol yes it is the same but it’s interesting how differently it gets covered. ‘Magical unicorn’ Amal isn’t really much different from ‘magical unicorn’ Meghan but they’ve just found different ways in. I hate that we can’t just be honest about it though. Of course this is’t just because Prince Charles finds Amal so amazing, just like Megan knew all about the Diana and the rest of the Royals, despite the denials. Why is it bad that woman might actually be social climbers and we somehow have to hide the fact?
Thank you! Both Amal and Meghan played/are playing the game and succeeding! To pretend both didn’t dive into this without eyes wide open is a bit much. When Meghan did the interview that she didn’t know much about the royal family was eye roll inducing. Slow hand clap for them both for climbing that ladder all the way up to Royalty. Agreed tho, the writing for Meghan leans towards flowery while Amal is more calculated when they’re women cut from the same cloth
I don’t think women can win. If they are completely upfront about their ambition, they get crushed, like Hilary Clinton, AOC, etc (and crushed by the exact same people the royal family needs for their survival, and some fake liberals and bros). If they act demure, then they are fakers and don’t show their ambition enough. Women can never win cause the goal post just keeps on moving, so they may as well continue to do their own thing.
I never liked Amal. She married a Clooney.
And Meg seems like more natural person, so i don’t see any similarities apart from long dark hair.
Well, Meghan is playing a role of someone in her position – being a member of a royal family is supposed to do. Amal on the other hand is a human rights lawyer. She just wants to be a celebrity/public figure. And pardon my French, but there are much bigger and way more accomplished men and women in international field and human rights that deserve to have an award in their name. So no. I am not here to praise this mess. This is like buying your way into a community you don’t exactly belong to or have the merit to join… oh wait, it is a completely different story involving other celebrities…
If you fund an award or grant then it often will be in your name.
Listen men get this crap thrown at their feet all the time. Buidlings, streets, awards, funds…. all named after themselves.
Im just happy its a womans name for once. And that the award is for women!! And this isnt for her own interest, but rather its a trust/charity so I got no complaints.
Unlike rich parents donating to schools to get their lazy kids in ahead of the hardworkers, so their rich lazy kid goes on to make and peddle stuff with their name on it.
+1000 @ teehee
+1 000 000 @ teehee
I came here to say the same. So many men get awards named after them, and play the same game in order to do so.
Amal is a social climber extraordinaire (and George is definitely going along for the ride). And I’m sure while it is for her own massive ego, it’s also to get the Clooney twins into the aristo circles. After all, Jack being made Casamigos Ambassador prior to his and Eugenie’s wedding was no “accident” based solely on “merit”. Befriending Meghan, “through a mutual friend”, also no accident.
Sorry, but I just don’t like her. I find her VERY phony. Just as her accomplishments have been blown up to make her seem like she’s a magical maven for the underprivileged, fighting the good fight, she was a JUNIOR barrister, for some very unsavory clients.
I agree, she’s thirsty for attention, but people seem to forget it only because she is a lawyer. You can have a ‘common’ job and still be a famewhore.
My God, the actual PREENING this woman did at the wedding; and George literally pushed an older woman out of the shot!!! Awful!!! Not enough water on the planet to quench that one’s thirst.
It is sad that she got the best education yet she just wants to be famous. Meanwhile many young girls cannot afford even basic education. Or pay for the schools she was able to go to.
As for her hubby, i never liked the dude. And i always felt he has some skeletons but doubt we will see any now.
Amal is simply a much smarter, more sophisticated and more accomplished version of Hyacinth Bucket.
😂 😂😂😂😂😂 PERFECT comparison!!! And bonus pts for the Keeping Up Appearances reference! [LOVE that show!).
Love me some Hyacinth Bouquet (Boo–kay).
Love me some social climbing women too. I call that ambition. And I am here to stan for it🙌🙌🙌🙌. Cause God knows I am sick of scheming, duplicitous, power-hungry men that have led us to wars, mass social unrest, climate change, and the normalisation of corruption and grifting. Let’s see if the social climbing women can make a difference.
Darling, Amal, here is a ladder, and some stilettos and some shoulders of old geezers like George and crew. Climb, baby. Climb. 🙌🙌🙌🙌💐💐💐. Just be sure to bring more women with you to the top!!!!
Total social climbing and you’re right – likely for their spawn. I do like her clothes for the most part – although not this gown.
Well said, Jan. If they were going to do something good with the social climbing, I’d watch with interest instead of skepticism. But the Clooney Showmance has been years in the running and all they’ve done is promoted themselves (99%) and made a few loud donations through their foundation (1%), a tiny drop in the ocean in the scheme of things. George has actually done harm to the liberal cause with he and his wife flaunting the 1% lifestyle and being so thirsty.
This is what wealthy people do all of the time. They start scholarships, foundations, build schools, etc. just to have their names attached to some good publicity. I’m neither shocked nor outraged about this award.
It hacks me off when film stars get humanitarian of the galaxy awards instead of the grafters, toiling away in anonymity who make the difference daily. Real people are the more praiseworthy than celebs and its time some real people got a shout out/look in at award shows. I hope that the awards bring credit where its due.
What is with these comments?? I don’t understand the dislike for someone like Amal, who hasn’t done anything bad. Shouldn’t we be happy a POC is entering a world normally only reserved for “English roses”
I like your comment, mainly because it gets me to examine my own thoughts, because I don’t like her much…I guess because someone like Gary Sinise does SO MUCH WORK for a cause (his is veterans), but his purpose seems to be an actual desire to really help them, rather than to see his name plastered everywhere. So he’s a hero to me, while she seems always about the photo op. But yes, she seems to be doing a lot of good in the world…
What “good” has she done? She’s been a jr. barrister for clients like Julian Assange and Middle Eastern despots.
Some people have issues with seeing POC enjoy the same privileges that have only been accessible to white people. All of this faux outrage reeks of classism. I guess Amal should “know her place”.
Amal is Lebanese. As someone who is also Lebanese (half), I would never call myself a POC because Lebanese people are white and–more importantly–because I have not faced the oppression POC’s deal with on a daily basis. I doubt very much Amal considers herself a POC for the same reason.
I would say Amal and George’s (I’m not giving him a pass) social climbing is on par with Ma Midd’s and Ma Midd gets lots of criticism on this site.
Thanks @Penny !
I don’t understand the Amal hate. She was succesful before she met George, she is smart, she is a woman of colour and she gets recognized for her work.
Not everyone has to LOVE her and I certainly don’t think she is second coming of Mother Theresa but I will never understand the need to disminish her and all her accomplishment.
Agreed. There’s so much vitriol aimed at her. She may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but she’s just doing her thing.
I actually kind of love how Amal and George are just like “yup, we are going to buy our way into the inner circle of the royal family.” They’re not hiding it lol, and they’re not hurting anyone.
Sorry she’s Lebanese. I can say as a Lebanese we are considered white. Not that I have a problem with being designated as POC, but don’t think it’s historically accurate, at least according to US Census among other things for many years. Plus, it always kind of seemed to me when people do this it’s white privileged trying to say we aren’t white enough.
Lebanese people come in various shades. Amal does not look like a white woman.
Further, she is Muslim and we had a harsh reminder of the end result of islamaphobia this past Friday.
To say that she is scott free from discrimination based on your skin color and experiences as a Lebanese is ridiculous.
You are not the representative for all Lebanese people and their life experience.
In what way does Amal not look like a white woman?
Maybe there’d have been a bit of muttering across garden hedges about the mysterious Levantine, in 1920s Oxfordshire, but now there’s no such silliness. (This just paves the way for equally not POC Kim Kardashian to legitimise her appropriation of black identity).
Half the women in Ireland look much like Amal, and they are thorough Irish. Must they have pale freckled skin and red hair?
This is dangerous stuff, dictating what white women must look like, in order to qualify. Not to mention other possible agendas .
She’s not “white” and with a name like Amal Alamuddin she did not have the same experience growing up as someone named Jane Smith. I’m Armenian and I always felt different regardless of checking “Caucasian” in a silly box.
Syd and Penny, Amal is white. I grew up with an equally Lebanese last name, as did the entire side of my dad’s family, and no one ever refused to sit next to us on the airplane, refused to seat us in their restaurant, ignored our need for service in a store, etc. She has not experienced the overt, subtle, and micro forms of racism that impact people of color every day.
Whatever you say, it’s not for me to dictate. I’ll still raise my eyebrows at a dark Italian woman calling herself a woman of colour though (it happened recently) If Amal herself claims this label or umbrella, then so be it. Failing that, it’s just ourselves waffling!
But say Amal decides to rush (incognito) into Selfridges and steal some handbags one day……-are the cops looking for a ‘white woman’ in their radio updates? There surely are. Describing the thief as otherwise would lead everyone up the garden path.
Id think anyone not actually WASP has endured some degree of outsiderhood. It just seems a bit much to claim the mantle protecting those whose darker skin has made them unmissable targets, when one has pretty much escaped such identification oneself.
Sorry,I’ll zip it ……had no coffee today and hardly recognise my own brain
Syd – like me, Amal is Druze, which is a unitarian religion that combines elements of many faiths. Please do not assume everyone from the MENA is Muslim.
Megan, some Lebanese people look white and some don’t. You probably look white because you are biracial. Perhaps you are Christian which may give you further privelege in the west as opposed to a Muslim woman.
I know a Lebanese woman who does look white but still faced employment discrimination because of her accented English and immigrant woman identity that she did not care to hide.
Amal could pass for Iranian, Pakistani, afghani and North Indian. She does not look white to me. I have heard people disparage her looks based on her big nose, before cosmetic surgery.
Lastly, it’s insulting and simplistic to generalize about a whole group of people based on your individual experience.
It would not be tolerated on here if people state that Meghan Markle can pass for white because she is a light skinned biracial woman and therfore has white privelege.
I think that both amal and Megan have similar skin tones.
I’m aware of the druze community and knew someone from this community while in uni. She too did not look white, but like Amal.
She told me that marrying out means you have to leave the religion. The community is small and they can only preserve it by marrying others from their religion, again from what she told me.
You are incorrect in identifying Amal as Druze. Her father is sunni Muslim and her mother is from the druze community. I guess technically, that means she’s not druze.
Regardless, with a name like Amal alamuddin, combined with her non white appearance, I doubt she was read as an upper class brit.
Syd- I am not bi-racial because both of my parents are white. Would you say to a black person that they can’t generalize an entire population based on their personal experience?
I’m Polish and I’m darker skinned than her. Am I a POC?
Meg, sorry for mistaking you as biracial.
I’m pretty sure that a woman who looks like Amal who is known to have ethnic origins in the middle east is not automatically read as white. When it comes to racial discrimination, It’s not about what poc think their identity is that matters but how the dominant group reads you.
It’s great that you faced no hardships or discrimination but that absolutely does not mean that every Lebanese immigrant had the same experience. Again, my very good Lebanese Christian friend (I know that not all Lebanese are Muslim) would often vent to me about her workplace and eventually quit her job and moved back to the middle east.
One last time and I’m out of this thread, some Lebanese people look white and others do not.
No one can claim to know the level of discrimination a non western immigrant family from the middle east faced while living in the UK, which had its own colonial relationship to the middle east.
Syd – You are trying define whiteness on your terms and are making judgements about who does, and who does not, get that identity based on you what you perceive to be white.
Everyone is splitting hairs – Amal passes as White. Passing meaning – if she weren’t Amal Clooney and you randomly saw her on the street or in pictures, you wouldn’t say “Islamophobia, she’s NOT WHITE, …. but her last name is Alamuddin so she’s not White.” This is not from the lens of POC, several White people I know identify her as White.
Compare her to me, I’m from Liberia, I have dark skin and I keep my hair natural and short. No one would ever confuse me as White, ever. Would you ladies be parsing this conversation out – if an obviously NON-WHITE person, like me, married George Clooney? No.
I love how the Lebanese women, take such offense at being called POC, or not-White. I think you ladies are showing your true colors in the guise of … “Oh I wouldn’t want to take that POC identity from someone who truly is subjugated to prejudice.” I lived in Beirut for two years, and the women there are obsessed with being White and not being dark-skinned. The obsession with looking White was so sad.
Chris Rock said it so eloquently that NO WHITE PERSON WOULD change places with him and he’s RICH. It just reveals the insidiousness of covert racism that lives in so many people. Everyone wants to be “just” that much better than someone else (usually a darker skinned person). Sip on that tea ladies.
This, Penny. Thank you. I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with Amal (or Meghan) making use of the fact that their style, beauty, vibe get attention and using that to direct awareness toward projects AND that they expect recognition for what they are doing.
Yes, there are a LOT of unknown people who do much more for their individual causes, but anyone with the barest modicum of basic sense understands that having a beautiful glamorous, accomplished woman attached to (or commenting on or interested in or supporting) your cause brings GLOBAL awareness (and donations.) Until an unknown can match that, they are unlikely to be the face of an initiative on this level.
Meghan and Amal (and other women who deliberately use their pull and power to raise awareness and funds for a cause- ANGELINA) walk the fine line of public expectations of femininity, ambition and power (and being their true selves). I’m not mad at them at all.
Is that Benedict Cumberbatch in the top photo?
Yes.
What everyone seems to be missing here is:
The Clooneys “bought” an Award = Prince Charles can be bought.
At least that’s how I’m perceiving it. And then I think to the smothered pay-to-play scandals involving Andrew and wonder if “the spare” isn’t also the designated scapegoat…
Spares will always be scape goats . No matter what the heir will be protected. Any spare. This has been going on since before the us was even a nation. Not changing anytime soon. The king that abdicated got his rep thrown under the bus once he was no longer in line
Yes, I think this is the far more interesting takeaway. Rich people donate $$$ all the time and expect some sort of recognition – scholarships, buildings, professorships etc. For the BRF to engage in this activity is tacky.
I wish the Queen a long life but she really was great for the monarchy. She lived through the war like her subjects, engaged in the post-war rationing that they all did, and has always conducted herself with a view that her job was a duty as well as a privilege. Will this institution survive the upcoming decades? Will Prince William’s contemporaries be willing to bow and curtsey in his presence when he’s been such an entitled lazy brat for most of his life?
But this isn’t anything new for the BRF either. A celebrity makes a big donation, they get to mingle with the PoW etc. this seems a little
More blatant than we normally see, but it’s not new.
As I see it, the Clooneys “buying” this award is just a modern version of what has been happening for centuries. In the past men were rewarded for their financial and other contribution to the king’s armies and causes by being given peerages or lands. In this case it’s the naming of an award. Nothing new here.
People forget that Prince Charles has been selling access for a long time. Remember when he was basicly doing advertisement for Spanish tile company Porcelanosa, in exchange for some renovations in his state and some donation as well? (Fun fact, George was also a brand ambassador. I think there are photos of them together for Spanish Hola) .That’s why I doubt any royal was “mad” at Meghan because of baby shower. They’ve being doing it for ages. The queen with Mohammed bin Rashid, the ‘Sophie tapes’… At worst they will ask her to be a bit a more circumspect about it.
Eye roll. If you donate money to fund an award or grant it is usually named after you. It is part of the lure of donating in the first place. Honestly, who gives a flying f-ck as long as the award is meaningful, going to deserving girls, and is well publicised – meaning those girls also get good publicity.
It’s not enough for them to do good, they have to be SEEN, doing good, which is what bothers me about them.
Thank you!!!! That is my problem. I’m only slightly appeased because it’s a good cause and a woman being recognized, but wouldn’t it be nice if people actually made these awards for the people who sacrifice and work hard in the arena and just don’t buy it.
I knew nothing about the refugee they have been sponsoring until David Letterman interviewed the gentleman on his netflix show. Something tells me they are doing a lot of good we don’t see, but that’s no fun for gossip.
Amal also has been fighting ISIS. Again, no fun to mention that as long as you can just keep pointing to the cases she worked on when someone else assigned her work for her.
They did a bunch of leaks as soon as they started hosting the refugee student, to make sure the world knew about it. And Amal did a UN Fashion Week with her stunt barrister case for Nadia Murad / the Yazidis vs ISIS and made sure she was covered in every fashion rag; it’s a case that basically can’t achieve anything because it’s not even legally feasible (see the article with opinions from legal professors in Huffington Post, Is Amal Clooney’s Plan to Drag Isis to Court Possible).
These two have been all about self-promotion from the start. Who hires a pap and releases pap pics from their first african safari and basically does a press release about it?
Panini – Amal is representing Nadia who is petitioning the International Criminal Court to charge ISIS leaders with genocide. There is nothing “stunt barrister” about seeking justice for the victims of human rights atrocities. Maybe they will never be brought to court, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth trying.
Megan, have you read the legal opinions? Making up the law as you go along is one of the definitions of pulling a legal stunt.
Actually, Panini, I was extremely active in the movement to get then-president Bill Clinton to sign the ICC treaty and I am quite familiar with how the court works because I have, as a human rights volunteer, collected evidence from victims.
A client of mine recently funded the evidence collection in the Rakhine State in Burma. It was that evidence that persuaded to the UN HRC to conduct a fact finding mission which ended with the conclusion that military generals should be prosecuted for genocide.
The UN and ICC don’t go out looking for cases to prosecute. Victims bring them evidence for cases.
Good for you, Megan, as it’s a hard field to be working in. But your work experience isn’t directly relevant to the point and you haven’t addressed the point: the legalities are bupkis. She can’t do what she is or was trying to do. This is a stunt case. She could do the PR with Nadia, holding interviews and info sessions, without going through the circus of pretending it’s a real legal case. Read the article.
Amal is perusing an untested angle with the ICC. While Iraq and Syria are not parties to the treaty, many ISIS fighters are from countries that have ratified the treaty. Theoretically, those fighters can be prosecuted by the court. Collecting evidence is essential to compelling the court to consider Amal’s legal theory. It is far from bupkis and, if she prevails, will be a huge victory for human rights.
Megan, but her case is specifically for the Yazidis in Iraq and Iraq isn’t a signatory to the Rome Statute. At this level, it’s political to some extent and UNSC and ICC will in all probability, i.e., 100%, never investigate/prosecute. “Untested” could be a misleading way to term it; it suggest she could somehow break new legal ground by trying it when there’s no way she will. There’s just no question it’s a stunt case.
What’s wrong with all this is not her trying something “creative,” to put it politely, but misrepresenting it, selling it to the media like it’s a real legal case with genuine merit and above all using her appearances with Nadia to parade herself for days in outrageously expensive clothing for the paps she/her mother calls. She is an outlandish woman, really obsessed with the fame. If you didn’t follow her UN Fashion Week spreads – back a year or two – closely, you should take the opportunity to review them now.
She would have done 100% better and had my respect if she’d done press conferences and held workshops and information sessions for people in the field as well as journalists on why it’s important to gather the evidence now – and skipped the couture-freebies parades and pap appointments. But she’d never have done that because, again, she’s all about the self-promotion and getting covered in celeb rags.
The case is a major long shot, but she is not trying something “creative.” She is exploring the limits of the court’s jurisdiction.
Almost all human rights cases are a long shots that the naysayers say are pointless. As I have seen first-hand that justice is a continuum and essential to rebuilding after war or crisis. Having rights violations acknowledged by a legitimate court is a critical step in healing for people and nations that have lived through atrocities. The process of collecting evidence, letting victims tell their story and be believed is so important. I have no shade for Amal in this endeavor because she is letting thousands of women know they are believed and are entitled to justice.
“She is exploring the limits of the court’s jurisdiction. ” – The jurisdiction of the court and international body isn’t in question at all and you can’t “test” it to expand it here; it’s well defined (thanks to treaty membership or lack of), even the issues determined by political (SC initiating; permanent member veto, say, by Russia). She’s really just doing PR and playing lawyer here, and that could be palatable if she didn’t act like it was a real legal case PLUS do her fashion thing with Nadia as a prop in her pap shots.
“Almost all human rights cases are a long shots that the naysayers say are pointless.” – Some IL cases are highly political but you might have legal rules that can be evoked as long as you push through with the PR to apply pressure where there’s no political will. Here you have specific legal mechanisms that just can’t be evoked!
“she is letting thousands of women know they are believed and are entitled to justice.”
– Or is she misleading them on that? They’re strictly speaking not entitled to the kind of justice she’s claiming because there’s no legal mechanism for it. She should be doing workshops, interviews, press conferences, and information sessions on collecting evidence for when there is a real legal avenue available and raising awareness rather than this stunt case, which seems to have been conceived of as a medium for her pap strolls.
Panini – I strongly encourage you to read the actual treaty. Amal’s case has a leg to stand on. I can’t figure out if your willful ignorance of the court rules is ignorance or racism. Just a reminder, no one ever thought Pinochet could be indicted, yet he was by a court in Spain.
Megan, I’m a lawyer (but I don’t practise IL). She doesn’t have a leg to stand on as the legal scholars in the Huff article I referred to earlier explained very, very clearly. Again, her case is specifically about acts against Yazidis in Iraq (and Syria, I believe).
Don’t know how the Pinochet and its specifics is relevant here, and that’s a municipal court rather than an international one. Would you like to go into exactly how ISIS could be prosecuted under a treaty the relevant countries in question aren’t signatories to? THIS is what she’s specifically trying to do, and specifics are critical here. Don’t give a vague direction to read this or that treaty without clarifying the specific point. I haven’t skimmed the Rome Statute since my university days but I’m open to being enlightened here. I do believe you’re the one not addressing the actual issues here, so the willful ignorance point is a strange one. Are you saying those IL legal scholars who’ve opined on her attempt are wrong? They must be unfit to teach then.
And racism, really?!
Megan and anyone else interested, check out CB poster Dippit’s comments in this thread: https://www.celebitchy.com/508049/ny_post_amal_clooney_was_rude_threw_a_tantrum_in_a_un_meeting/
Dippit appears to have a background in IL and lays out the facts and legalities very well in her posts. Amal Clooney is/was totally pulling a stunt with this case, and it looks like the stunt was mainly to burnish her and her rapidly becoming-a-has-been husband’s image as “power couple.” Utterly vomitous, the two of them!
Not true. They both do A LOT which they don’t necessarily promote. I do not understand the vitriol. Save it for people who are cr_p people. Who cares if they like a bit of attention or love to social climb? Just laugh it off, don’t get your panties in a bunch.
Oh, give it up Baria/Stan/Tala. These two are as fake and self-serving as they come and anyone with common sense knows it. They undermined any potential they had to win over the public / influence by putting themselves at the centre of issues as saviours, with the overt narcissism and superficiality (she obviously spends more time in hair and makeup and in picking out outfits than anything genuinely altruistic), and the laughably out-of-date approach where they set themselves up as some sort of new royalty and hold court for people at Lake Como, aka Versailles. So passe and clueless and devoid of intelligent cultural context. They are actually quite hilarious to watch and George has shown his true colours after years of successfully selling that “lovable, charming, one of the guys” image.
So she donates a ton of money to charity and people are pissed that what she gets in return is to hobnob with the aristocracy? How is that a bad thing. She clearly loves the limelight and George is lapping up the status she has brought him.
I have a theory. H&M’s requested no gifts for their wedding, preferring instead donations to their charities. My view is that George and Amal, (perhaps Oprah and other high profile celebs) of their own accord, made significant contributions to the charities previously, which is why they were invited. This is what the 1% do to distract us from the ever-widening gap between the haves and have nots. They put their money in foundations, trusts, charities and show off what they are doing for the poor.
Noblesse oblige is always how the rich have, in part, further solidified their power. Donating 5% or whatever of your income appeases the masses so they don’t look for structural change (income equality). The Clooneys aren’t altruisic or even progressive; they’re very old fashioned, passe, and in it for themselves.
I’m curious why you think George doesn’t really care if the British establishment accepts him. Maybe they both care?
Yeah, I don’t hate this. She presumably made a large donation, plus she and George have star power (well at least George does, and she benefits from that) and the Prince’s Trust is going to leverage that. This is how the world works. Maybe their end goal here is Eton for their son and the equivalent for Ella, but there are worse ways to go about it, as we have seen.
I like her dress, she should stand up straighter.
It’s a lovely dress, agree and she looks so good in it.
That nose…
I like her nose. Not everyone has a natural or bought button nose, thank goodness.
@Minx, I like it too! She’s very striking.
Agree! I like her nose and I liked her previous one, too. I like that she didn’t go for that traditional ski-jump nose when she got her rhinoplasty – not everyone wants that petite nose even if they do have surgery.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with her nose.
It is prominent, but she can’t help that. She can, however, help her posture. Stand up straight, woman!
The obsession with small, white lady noses is really repulsive.
All i get from this is all your favs can and are being bought one way are another.
If I donated a substantial chunk of money to an institution, something would have my name on it as well. Hell, If I ran an organization and someone donated a substantial amount of money, I’d give them their pick of naming options out of gratitude for their gift.
Exactly.
Oh, Kaiser you are so wrong…
George Clooney CARES a lot…
He just found someone who equally cares and have the intelligence and ambition to climb up there.
Well the wonderful CNN lady Amanpour looks a lot like Amal and l don’t think she considers herself white and she will tell you all about the discrimination she faced over her looks and accent as she rose to the pinnacle.