George Clooney has written a scathing letter to The Daily Mail, slamming it for publishing a “fabricated story” about his fiancee’s mother opposing his marriage to Amal Alamuddin.
In the open letter, published by USA Today , Clooney, fights back after The Daily Mail published a story saying his fiancee Amal Almuddin’s mother Baria “has been ‘telling half of Beirut’ that she wanted her daughter to marry within the Druze sect’’.
The original report claimed a Lebanese friend of the family in London, said: “She thinks Amal can do better. She has been telling half of Beirut, in fact anyone that will listen, there are five hundred thousand Druze. Are none of them good enough for her?”.
The accomplished Hollywood actor and director, who admits he normally stays away from commenting on rumour and gossip in the media, has now spoken out.
He started his letter by saying: “I want to speak to the irresponsibility of Monday’s Daily Mail report.
“I seldom respond to tabloids, unless it involves someone else and their safety or well being. “The Daily Mail has printed a completely fabricated story about my fiancee’s mother opposing our marriage for religious reasons. It says Amal’s mother has been telling “half of Beirut” that she’s against the wedding. It says they joke about traditions in the Druze religion that end up with the death of the bride.
“Let me repeat that: the death of the bride.”
Clooney then goes on to say his fiancee’s mother is not Druze, and she is not against their marriage.
“I’m, of course, used to the Daily Mail making up stories — they do it several times a week — and I don’t care. If they fabricate stories of Amal being pregnant, or that the marriage will take place on the set of Downton Abbey, or that I’m running for office, or any number of idiotic stories that they sit at their computers and invent, I don’t care,” he said.
“But this lie involves larger issues. The irresponsibility, in this day and age, to exploit religious differences where none exist, is at the very least negligent and more appropriately dangerous.”
He goes on: “We have family members all over the world, and the idea that someone would inflame any part of that world for the sole reason of selling papers should be criminal.”
He also names some of the other media outlets who have picked up the story from The Daily Mail and cited them as their source.
In Clooney’s letter, they included Boston.com, New York Daily News, Gulf News and Emirates 24/7.
In his last paragraph, he concludes with this: “The Daily Mail, more than any other organisation that calls itself news, has proved time and time again that facts make no difference in the articles they make up. And when they put my family and my friends in harm’s way, they cross far beyond just a laughable tabloid and into the arena of inciting violence.”
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