The Rogue Relative. So many celebrities have one. The Rogue Relative often makes his/her appearance whenever there’s a celebration or a tragedy. The Rogue Relative is always good for a soundbite. The Rogue Relative isn’t discerning about who s/he gives the soundbite to, which is why the Rogue Relative usually shows up in one of the trashier tabloids, or the Daily Mail.
So George Clooney has an aunt by marriage, Starla Clooney. There was a Clooney family gathering a couple of weeks ago when they all saw each other last and now she’s telling the Daily Mail that Clooney and Amal Alamuddin will probably get married in Italy, even though they were initially thinking Cincinnati, and Brad Pitt could be the best man:
“I did hear Cincinnati, since it’s not that far from Kentucky - that’s one of the places they were considering - but apparently Cincinnati didn’t win, it's not going to be the place. I do know that Nick and Nina (George’s parents) are planning a trip over to Italy in the next week or so to, I guess, scope out some stuff. I would say he’d choose Brad Pitt for his best man. They are good friends, I would think that’s who he’d choose.”
So she went rogue …and she’s wrong. Which is embarrassing. Because she clearly doesn’t know much about her nephew.
Clooney has a crew. They’re his boys. They are TIGHT. You probably know Rande Gerber best because the others aren’t famous but they’re loyal and supportive and they spend all kinds of time together and it would be almost unthinkable that one of those guys wouldn’t be the best man. George and Brad are friends, of course. But they’re not really best friends. George and Matt Damon are closer than George and Brad Pitt. George and John Krasinski are closer than George and Brad Pitt. And if I know this, she should know this. And if she doesn’t know this…well…bless her, what does she know?
It’s not her fault. She’s not media trained. And when a reporter wants to talk to you, make you feel like what you have to say is important, I suppose it could be hard for someone who’s related to someone super famous to say, “Um, I have no idea”, because it might give them the idea that you’re not that close and you wouldn’t want people to think that George Clooney doesn’t like her.
What can you do when you’re the celebrity though? Of course you don’t want your relatives going rogue but if you’re Clooney, you also don’t want to be that dick who issues an edict out to the family to tell them to shut up.
So if Aunt Starla wants to tell some low rent UK magazine, like HEAT, next time that George and Amal are expecting twins called Rosemary and Roxanne, well, you just kind of have to let her have her way.
Attached – some shots of Clooney I don’t think I ever posted in Shanghai last month.
