George Clooney Storms Out Of Dinner With Casino Mogul Over Obama Insult
George Clooney stormed out of a dinner with Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn two weeks ago, and since then, speculation has run amok as to what might have caused the tiff between the two-time Oscar-winner and the billionaire own six of the biggest hotel-casinos on the Vegas strip.
Now, Clooney is telling the story — and it involves no less a figure that the President of the United States Barack Obama, whom Clooney counts as a “longtime friend.” But to the 72-year-old Wynn, according to George Clooney, Obama is nothing but an a******.
Of course, Wynn has a very different version of the events that took place at the tony Botero Restaurant, in the Wynn-owned Encore Hotel. But this is how the Gravity star tells the tale, in an e-mail sent to The Las Vegas Review-Journal.
“There were nine people at that table, so you can ask them,” wrote George Clooney. “Steve likes to go on rants. He called the president an a******. That is a fact. I said the President was my longtime friend and then he said ‘your friend is an a*******.’ At that point I told Steve that HE was an a****** and I wasn’t going to sit at his table while he was being such a jackass. And I walked out. There were obviously quite a few more adjectives and adverbs used by both of us. Those are all the facts. It had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with character.”
According to Wynn, however, the altercation started when a Hollywood bigshot from the powerful talent agency CAA made a joke about former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev. The 52-year-old Clooney was “drunk” on tequila at the time, Wynn alleged.
The crack about Gorbachev caused George Clooney to embark on a “hissy fit,” according to the casino boss.
Wynn also said that he irritated Clooney with his opinions on the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare.
“Clooney’s fun to be with when he’s sober,” Wynn said. “If you have a chance to drink with him, you want to get there early, and don’t stay late.”
George Clooney offered no comment on the Steve Wynn take on the events of that fateful evening.
