“I can’t be seen wearing this dress or doing this because I’m in front of a judge on Monday.” That was the worry Amal Clooney said she carried in the early days of her marriage to George Clooney.
The human rights lawyer, 48, spoke about it at a Cartier Dialogues event in Bangkok earlier in June, according to Page Six, which cited the Daily Mail. Before the marriage, she said, she had kept her work life and personal life apart. “I used to have my work life and my personal life, and they could look quite different, and I was able to not have them mix… and then I got married and that changed quite a lot.”
She called it “a weird phenomenon.” What she missed was choice. “It was easier when I could decide what kind of exposure I got,” she said. “It was something new to navigate.”
At first, she said, she was conscious of a “one-dimensional view” of her, and of how a judge might read her choices. The feeling faded. “It just doesn’t matter as much as living your life,” she said. “Ultimately if you’re good at what you do, that is going to shine through or not.”
She was firm about where she drew the line. She said she “wouldn’t allow that factor to stop me from doing things that were important for my family or for my relationship.”
The couple married in Italy in 2014 and have twins, Ella and Alexander, who are now 9. Page Six noted that George Clooney has often said they have never argued in their 12 years of marriage. He told the Los Angeles Times in January that he is “much more secure” now and “less in the mood to win arguments.”
Amal Clooney has spoken before about how he backs her career. “I have a partner in life who is so supportive of what I do,” she told Glamour in a profile last year. “So I don’t feel like I have to apologize for it or rein it in.”
