George Clooney Makes Plea Concerning His Children in Open Letter to the Media
George Clooney has issued an urgent plea to the media to "refrain" from publishing photos of his and wife Amal Clooney's children, 4-year-old twins Ella and Alexander. In "an open letter to the Daily Mail and other publications" published Thursday, the Oscar-winning actor said the media sharing photos of his children could "put their lives in jeopardy" due to the nature of Amal's work as an international law and human rights lawyer.
The Midnight Sky actor issued the plea, obtained by Deadline, after he saw photos of Billie Lourd's 1-year-old son Kingston on the Daily Mail. The images were subsequently removed. Clooney wrote that he and his wife "would request that you refrain from putting our children's faces in your publication." He noted that while he is "a public figure and accepts the oftentimes intrusive photos as part of the price to pay for doing my job," his children "have made no such commitment." The actor went on to note that the nature of his wife's work as a human rights lawyer "has her confronting and putting on trial terrorist groups," and as such, they "take as much precaution as we can to keep our family safe. We cannot protect our children if any publication puts their faces on their cover.
"We have never sold a picture of our kids, we are not on social media and never post pictures because to do so would put their lives in jeopardy. Not paranoid jeopardy but real world issues, with real world consequences," Clooney wrote. "We hope that you would agree that the need to sell advertisement isn't greater than the need to keep innocent children from being targeted."
At this time, it does not appear that the Daily Mail has responded to Clooney's request. Variety reported that a representative for the outlet "could not immediately be reached for comment late Thursday." Clooney and Amal, who married in 2014, welcomed their twins in 2017 and have kept them shielded from the public eye.
With his letter, Clooney joins a growing list of celebrities directly asking the media to respect their choice to keep their children out of the spotlight. His open letter came just weeks after Blake Lively blasted an Instagram account that shared "disturbing" photos of herself and her husband with daughters James, Inez, and Betty. The actress, who previously requested the media stop sharing unsolicited images of her children, described the behavior as "exploiting very young children." Meanwhile, back in 2014, Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard spearheaded the "No Kids Policy," an effort to get news outlets to stop sharing, buying or posting photos of celebrities' children taken without consent.