Looks like George Clooney owes Michelle Pfeiffer a lot of money.
The 52-year-old actor — Hollywood’s most determined bachelor, famous for a litany of fleeting loves — has taken himself off the romantic market, even though he once bet Pfeiffer US$100,000 that he would never marry again.
After dating a string of actresses, models, a cocktail waitress and a former professional wrestler, Clooney recently proposed to 36-year-old international law attorney Amal Alamuddin — despite repeated protestations that marriage was not for him.
“This fascination with my love life is really something,” he told the British newspaper the Express earlier this year. “I keep saying I’ll never get married again or have children, but people just don’t want to believe me.”
News of the engagement was announced by the human rights law firm where Alamuddin works. Doughty Street Chambers said on Monday its lawyers and staff “offer their best wishes and congratulations to Ms Amal Alamuddin... and Mr George Clooney on their engagement to be married.”
Alamuddin has advised former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan on Syria, helped ex-Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko challenge her imprisonment and represented WikiLeaks frontman Julian Assange as he fought extradition to Sweden.
Meanwhile, Clooney has stepped down as a UN “Messenger of Peace,” the UN said on Monday, suggesting the newly engaged actor did not have enough time for the role promoting the world body’s peacekeeping efforts.
“After six years in this role, Mr Clooney feels it is time to retire his official role as Messenger of Peace,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, wishing Clooney well on his engagement to Alamuddin.
“The competing demands on their time from their professional and advocacy lives sometimes make it difficult for high-profile individuals to carry out a formal United Nations role,” he said.
As a messenger of peace, Clooney traveled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan. Dujarric said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hoped there would be future opportunities for collaboration between Clooney and the UN.
In 2010, Clooney helped found the Satellite Sentinel Project, which tracks human rights abuses and atrocities in Sudan.
“Retiring from his UN role will afford him the independence to move forward with this and other personal advocacy projects and activities,” Dujarric said.
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