George Clooney vs. Joe Biden
It's Gossip Time!
Hello and welcome to Gossip Time, a weekly guide to the stars by Allie Jones. This week: an actor writes an op-ed, another actor helps a friend, and Glen Powell gets a dog.
Who knew this presidential election cycle was gonna get so gossipy? I hate to bring up our country’s impending doom in this otherwise safe space, but we must discuss George Clooney vs. Joe Biden.
Clooney, 63, published an op-ed in The New York Times on Wednesday calling on Biden, 81, to drop out of the presidential race. It is well argued and just a little bit bitchy — perfect, in my opinion. Clooney writes that at the $30 million fundraiser he hosted for Biden last month, the president “was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”
“We are not going to win in November with this president,” he continued. “On top of that, we won’t win the House, and we’re going to lose the Senate. This isn’t only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and Congress member and governor who I’ve spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.”
The Biden campaign has “hit back” via…the tabloids. TMZ exclusively reported this week that Clooney demanded the fundraiser be held in L.A. on June 15, the day after Biden’s (apparently shaky) appearance at the G7 summit in Italy. So it’s, uh, Clooney’s fault the president was tired.
So far, none of the other celebrities at the event — Julia Roberts, Jimmy Kimmel, Barbra Streisand, Jack Black, etc. — have issued similar calls for the president to step aside. The New York Times reports that the White House tried to stop Clooney’s op-ed from coming out, even enlisting the Biden campaign’s chief Hollywood fundraiser (and enthusiastic defender) Jeffrey Katzenberg to attempt to talk him out of it. That obviously did not work.
To Clooney’s credit, several outlets have now reported that Biden was not exactly at peak performance at the fundraiser. From The Wall Street Journal:
When Kimmel joked at Los Angeles’s Peacock Theater that he had given his son, Billy, a stuffed animal of the president’s dog, “and it bit Billy’s toe off,” the president didn’t register an immediate response — but Obama chimed in with a reference to his Affordable Care Act, quipping, “Fortunately he’s covered!”
Oh dear. Speaking of former president Barack Obama: He is very friendly with Clooney. According to Politico, Clooney ran the op-ed by him before publication, and “while Obama did not encourage or advise Clooney to say what he said, he also didn’t object to it.”
And a bit more backstory: Clooney was already frustrated with Biden back in May, when White House officials criticized the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders over the Gaza war. Secretary of State Antony Blinken even said he would work to sanction ICC members over the decision. Clooney’s wife, the human-rights lawyer Amal Clooney, just so happened to have worked with the ICC to review and approve the decision to issue the arrest warrants. According to The Washington Post, George called longtime Biden adviser Steve Richetti in May to register his complaints about the White House essentially threatening to sanction his wife.
Clooney still went through with the fundraiser, but perhaps now the Biden campaign wishes he had not. What’s going to happen now? I guess we could ask Jack Schlossberg.
Now for some good old-fashioned, non-political Leonardo DiCaprio gossip. According to Page Six, DiCaprio, 49, took time out of his busy 4th of July partying schedule in the Hamptons to help a drunk guy, kinda. At a party at fintech mogul David Rosenberg’s Bridgehampton estate thrown by DiCaprio’s longtime party guy Richie Akiva, DiCaprio reportedly helped right a wayward guest.
“At one point Leo picked up a very drunk guy, and put him by a pole. The guy was literally falling over,” said a spy.
“Leo put out his hand on [the pole] so he wouldn’t fall and said, ‘Stay there.’”
We’re told the guy obeyed the star, and “stayed holding onto the pole.”
Hero? Sure, you could say that.
DiCaprio’s Pussy Posse lieutenant Tobey Maguire also attempted to be a good Samaritan in the Hamptons last weekend, but it backfired. Maguire, 49, was photographed leaving Michael Rubin’s annual white party with a 20-year-old actress/model named Lily Chee. The tabloids suggested, naturally, that they must be dating. But according to Maguire’s ex-wife Jen Meyer (daughter of the somewhat-canceled former Hollywood exec Ron Meyer), they’re wrong.
“I don’t usually respond to such nonsense, but he was kindly helping a friend to her car,” she wrote on Instagram in response to a comment noting that Chee is just three years older than the ex-couple’s daughter. “Being a good guy. And now he has [sic] blasted online for dating someone he is not.”
He was simply helping his 20-year-old actress/model FRIEND to her car. Being a good guy! For the record, Maguire’s last girlfriend, the model Tatiana Dieteman, was 26 when they started dating in 2019.
DiCaprio and Maguire were photographed walking around New York together on Monday. I hope they got a chance to relax after all their acts of service.
STUFF BY HILARY DUFF: Hilary Duff published her July recap on Instagram on July 9. Always raising the bar.
Finally, have you seen Glen Powell’s new puppy?
Okay, now you have.
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Programming note: I am off next week for vacation. Please celebrate Bennifer’s two-year wedding anniversary on July 17 in my absence.
As I recall, Amal and George were at the Harry/Meghan wedding because Casa Amigos all but sponsored the reception; Cousin Eugenia’s husband worked in promotions for the brand at the time.