How Did George and Amal Clooney Meet? All About Their Chance Connection — and Why George’s Agent Knew They Would Get Married

George and Amal Clooney “stayed up all night” when they met for the first time

George Clooney wasn't expecting to meet his wife, Amal Clooney, when he invited a friend over for dinner in 2013.

When the friend asked if he could bring someone else to George's Lake Como home, the actor agreed and met his now-wife for the first time. In a 2018 interview on My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman, George called their first meeting "the wildest thing."

Amal also opened up about meeting George for the first time in her 2018 Vogue cover interview. “I always hoped there could be love that was overwhelming and didn’t require any weighing or decision-making,” Amal said. “It’s the thing you have the least control over. Are you going to meet this person? I was 35 when I met him. It wasn’t obvious that it was going to happen for me. And I wasn’t willing or excited about the idea of getting married or having a family in the absence of that.”

Related: George Clooney and Amal Clooney's Relationship Timeline

The pair are more intertwined than ever since getting married in 2014. Two years later, they established the Clooney Foundation for Justice, which works “to hold perpetrators of mass atrocities accountable for their crimes, and to help victims in their fight for justice,” per their website. And in 2017, they became parents, welcoming twins Ella and Alexander.

George told The Hollywood Reporter in 2017 that he knew Amal was the one almost immediately. "We were a team from right off the bat. Immediately, we felt we were just happy, and we have been happy ever since," he said.

George and Amal celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary in September 2024 and a few days before, at the couple's annual charity event, the actor told PEOPLE about their special plans.

“I’m taking her somewhere tonight, but she doesn’t know where," George teased with his wife by his side.

So, how did the couple initially kick off their relationship? Here’s everything to know about how George Clooney met his wife, Amal Clooney.

Amal and George Clooney met at his home in Italy

On My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman, George explained that when he met Amal, she had been visiting Italy. During her stay in July 2013, a mutual friend of Amal and George’s brought her to George’s villa in Lake Como.

"It's the wildest thing,” George said. “A mutual friend of ours said, 'I'm stopping by and can I bring my friend?' And I was like, 'Of course.' "

He added, "I got a call from my agent who called me and said, 'I met this woman who's coming to your house who you're gonna marry.' The funniest thing was my mom and dad were visiting, so my parents were there, and we just talked and we stayed up all night talking.”

In 2017, George told The Hollywood Reporter that he was immediately taken with Amal. “I thought she was beautiful, and I thought she was funny and obviously smart,” he said, jokingly adding that she probably thought he was "old."

After meeting, Amal and George Clooney became penpals

In a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter in 2017, George said, “[Amal] sent some pictures from when she was here, and we were writing each other, emailing, talking, mostly about what was going on in each other’s lives.” He continued, saying that “over a period of time, it became clear we were more than just friends.”

Now, letter writing is a tradition the Clooneys maintain. As the actor told Drew Barrymore in 2022, “I started writing her a bunch of letters ... We still write letters. We leave them on the pillow.”

Amal and George Clooney went on their first date in London

George told the story of his first date with Amal on The Drew Barrymore Show in 2022.

“She was living in London and I went to London to score a movie. And I thought, if you’re ever gonna impress anybody, it’s at Abbey Road with a 150 piece orchestra," he said of their October 2013 date. "I called her up and said, ‘You want to come see and visit over at Abbey Road?’ ”

George went on to explain Amal’s response: “She’s like, ‘Yeah, I’m at a meeting at the Muslim Brotherhood right now and I’ll come right over.’ Because she was in the middle of trying to re-do a constitution ... Her life and my life are very different.”

The Wolfs star told The Hollywood Reporter that the date went well and their relationship grew quickly.

“That was a good first date. Then we went for dinner," he said. "It was one of those places that was incredibly hip and chic. And when we came out, there were 50 paparazzi there. But she handled it like a champ. And pretty quickly, things escalated once I was in London.”

Five months after meeting, Amal and George Clooney traveled to Kenya together

In early 2014, George and Amal took a trip to Kenya where they went on a safari. “Amal loves giraffes; they're her favorite animal,” George told The Hollywood Reporter. “She went to this place called Giraffe Manor, where the giraffes stick their heads through the windows and kiss you.”

He told the outlet that once he returned to Los Angeles, he showed a photo of Amal to his friend, Ben Weiss. “I had a picture of her, looking back, smiling at these giraffes,” he explained, “And I said, ‘I think I’m going to ask her to marry me.’ ”

In September 2024, right before their 10th anniversary, George and Amal held their annual foundation charity event and told PEOPLE about their deep connection.

“I would support anything my wife is involved in,” George said. “She’s always on the right side of history, and I’m always so proud to be in the same room with her no matter what."

George Clooney proposed to Amal after less than a year of dating

Although he planned the whole evening, George said on The Drew Barrymore Show that his proposal to Amal was a "disaster.”

“I’ve got a playlist with my Aunt Rosemary singing,” he explained, before telling Drew that he had placed the ring in a small drawer behind Amal. The pair had been having dinner that George cooked when the song by his aunt started, so he said, “You know, ‘I think there’s a lighter [in the drawer] to relight the candle,’ which I blew out.”

When Amal reached for the lighter, she saw the ring and said, according to George, “There’s a ring in there,” not picking up on the fact that he was proposing.

But, as George told Drew, “We pulled it off.”

Amal and George Clooney married in 2014

George and Amal returned to the site of their first meeting and were married in Italy at the historic Aman Canal Grande Venice on Sept. 27, 2014. The newlyweds were surrounded by approximately 100 of their closest family and friends. George wore a Giorgio Armani suit, while Amal wore an off-the-shoulder Oscar de la Renta gown made in French lace and hand-embroidered with pearls and diamanté accents.

“George and Amal radiated love all night,” Amal's mother, Baria, told PEOPLE. “The wedding was so unbelievably special, it was legendary. These three days – the friends, the families, the atmosphere, everything – will stay with me all the rest of my life.”

In 2018, Amal delivered a speech at the American Film Institute Awards to commemorate George, who was being given a Life Achievement Award. Throughout her speech, Amal spoke to her husband’s character, making it clear why she continues to be so smitten with him: “He is a gentleman in every sense of the word and in a way that seems so rare these days and, perhaps, even outdated.”

Congratulating him on the honor, she continued, “I am so proud of you, my love.”

Amal and George Clooney became parents in 2017

Three years after their wedding, on June 6, 2017, Amal gave birth to twins, Ella and Alexander Clooney.

On raising two children at the same time, George said on Good Morning America in 2023, "When you have twins and you're raising [them] the same time, the same way, and they're completely different human beings, you realize how little say you have in who they are.”

In her American Film Institute Awards speech, Amal shared that “seeing [George] with our children, Ella and Alexander, is the greatest joy in my life.”

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