George Clooney criticises people who filmed him lying on the ground after his motorbike crash

‘You want to take every one and shake them,’ said actor

George Clooney has said that members of the public filmed him after he had a major motorbike crash in 2018.

The actor was driving at 75mph in Sardinia when a car turned in front of him and sent him flying over the handlebars.

In a new interview with The Sunday Times, Clooney said he feared he would die.

“I was waiting for my switch to turn off,” he said. The actor added that after the crash, he was lying on the ground and screaming, and a crowd of people gathered around him, filming him on their phones.

“If you’re in the public eye,” he said, “what you realise when you’re on the ground thinking it’s the last minute of your life is that, for some people, it’s just going to be entertainment for their Facebook page. I’m a pretty positive guy, but that told me – clearly – that you really are here just for their entertainment.”

He lamented the fact that some people’s priority when seeing an injured man is to film them for their social media pages, saying: “You want to take every one and shake them.”

Clooney added: “People are living their lives this way and I fight against it. If my kids do something cute, I want to take a picture, but I have to say, ‘Be in the moment – you don’t have to record everything.’”

Last year, Clooney told The Independent and other outlets that he was “lucky” to be alive after the crash.

Clooney’s new film, The Tender Bar, is out in cinemas on 17 December and on Amazon from 7 January.