There’s been some debate about whether we should refer to Amal Clooney as a renowned international human rights lawyer or an impossibly chic movie star’s wife. Now she has yet another role to further complicate things: mother!
That’s right, it’s time to baby-proof the Clooney villa in Lake Como, because Amal and her husband George Clooney became parents Tuesday morning with the arrival of their twin bambinos, Ella and Alexander! Surely Amal’s new status as a mom will allow us, once and for all, to solve the quandary of whether women can be more than one thing at the same time. Having it “Amal,” they’ll call it, shorthand for the new generation of raven-haired, terrorism-fighting, jet-setting, twin-parenting exemplars of modern femininity.
But as the world applies scrutiny to Amal’s performance of motherhood, we’ll also get to watch George Clooney, onetime poster boy for the bachelor life, perform fatherhood. For years, it seemed like the last thing the famously handome and charming (and famous!) movie star would ever do is settle down. It’s a far cry from what George himself used to say about his future plans: In 2006, he said that he never wanted kids, and he even had a bet with Michelle Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman that he would never get married again. (He was married to Mona Sterling from 1989 to 1993.)
Asking George how he’s taking to fatherhood will probably make for fun red carpet banter. His press statement reads: “Ella, Alexander and Amal are all healthy, happy and doing fine. George is sedated and should recover in a few days.” Har har. George, by the way, is 56, so at this rate Leonardo DiCaprio, a young buck of 42, still has over a decade of wild-oats-sowing left should he opt for fatherhood.
Amal is 39. She had to fit her goals of becoming an international superlawyer and a wife and parent into a more confined timeline, like almost all mothers do. Maybe being a late-in-life father, especially the father of a girl—chalk it up to the Daughter Clause—will enlighten George to the struggles and double standards that women face. More likely is that next time he has a movie to promote, we’ll get a few anecdotes about him changing diapers, his transformation into bumbling husband of Queen Amal now complete.
