George Clooney Should Sue The Mail

[Update at end of post]

The Daily Mail, as with so much of the tabloid press, has taken to generating more and more of its stories from recycling gossip about slebs. About any slebs. But especially about slebs who really are famous. On occasion, this combines with the agenda of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre to produce articles that are judgmental, especially when it comes to marriage.

Why the f*** shouldn't my hacks kick George Clooney, c***?!? Er, with the greatest of respect, Mr Jay

The rules of that mythical “conversation” that the Vagina Monologue enjoys with all those Daily Mail Readers hold that men and women must become happily married and produce offspring, preferably no later than their late 20s or early 30s. Men who remain single through their 40s are fair game for a good kicking, and this has been the lot of actor George Clooney, despite his having been married once.

Clooney, who is 53, is engaged to lawyer Amal Alamuddin. Almost from the off, the Mail sniped at them. The couple would have to pay £100,000 duty on Ms Alamuddin’s engagement ring (a Mail hack “was told”)! He skipped the Oscars “after” parties for her, or perhaps he didn’t! And there had to be the intrusive stuff, such as long lens photos of a dinner date with friends in Los Angeles.

Then came the sly suggestions of trouble in the relationship: “Amal Alamuddin blows off George Clooney's family reunion in Kentucky to ‘save the world’”, readers were told last month. What had happened? There had been a family gathering and she wasn’t there (no shock horror). And whose business would that be? Clue: it has sweet jack to do with Dacre and his attack doggies.

So when the latest fact-free smear of Clooney and Ms Alamuddin emerged, it should have come as no surprise. “EXCLUSIVE – ‘She can do better’: Amal Alamuddin's mother ‘is unimpressed with George Clooney and wants daughter to marry within their strict Lebanese religious sect’” reads the headline, which is exclusive only inasmuch as the Mail exclusively made it all up.

We can get an idea of how much fabrication went into this latest jerry-built edifice as Clooney has given a genuine exclusive to USA Today, telling that the Mail invented Ms Alamuddin’s religious affiliation (she’s not Druze), as well as comments attributed to her mother. He asserts, with good reason, that what the Mail has published borders on incitement, and could put him and his family in harm’s way.

“The Daily Mail, more than any other organization that calls itself news, has proved time and time again that facts make no difference in the articles they make up” he concludes. Well, have I got news for George: they will carry on running totally made-up copy about him until he stands his ground and sues the SOBs. Because, when it comes to the Daily Mail, that is the only language Dacre understands.

George Clooney should sue the Mail, and he should do it now. End of story.

[UPDATE 1320 hours: the online version of the Mail's article has now been removed.

Whether pressure was put on the Mail to take it down is not known, although for the Dacre doggies to back down without the threat of legal action is rare.

Perhaps the inhabitants of the Northcliffe House bunker will think twice before their next totally made-up story about whoever they want to smear at the time. But, then again, perhaps not]