George Clooney reveals why he has no regrets about waiting until his fifties to have children

Actor became a father to twins Ella and Alexander at 56

George Clooney has opened up about why he has no regrets over waiting until his 50s to have children, revealing that he “found the right person to have them with”.

The Midnight Sky star spoke candidly about becoming a father at 56 to twins Ella and Alexander with wife Amal Clooney during an interview with Today’s Hoda Kotb on Thursday. 

When asked about his decision to “wait so long,” the actor explained that it was never his goal to have children until he found a partner who he wanted to have a family with.

“I found the right person to have them with,” he said. “There are some people, their goal was: ‘I have to have children.’ Mine wasn’t. I wasn’t looking at life, going: ‘My life will be unfulfilled without children.’ I felt like I had a pretty full life. Then I met Amal and realised that my life had been pretty empty. 

“And then we throw these two kids in there and suddenly you realise how incredibly empty it was and, you know, it fills it all up. It makes it fun.”

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As for what becoming a parent has given him that “Hollywood couldn’t”, the 59-year-old said fatherhood has given him “everything”.

“A sense of belonging, and a sense of home and the unconditional love, all the things that you were hoping you could get from a really good career and a dog. You realise that this is a lot more than that,” he said.

Clooney and his wife, an international human rights lawyer, first met in October 2013 before tying the knot in September 2014. The couple welcomed their three-year-old twins in 2017.

Although Clooney is grateful for all that his wife and children have brought into his life, he previously revealed that there was one “dumb” mistake that he and Amal made when raising the twins.

Appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in December, the actor explained that he and Amal accidentally “armed them with a language” after having the children learn Italian, despite neither he nor his wife speaking the language.

“We did a really dumb thing which is, they speak fluent Italian,” Clooney told Kimmel. “I mean fluent Italian at three. But I don’t speak Italian, my wife doesn’t speak Italian, so we’ve armed them with a language.”