Amal Clooney faced sexual harassment in legal world: George Clooney

The Oscar winner hopes that the women who came forward will shift showbiz toward exposing more alleged predators

George Clooney has disclosed that his wife Amal, the high profile human rights lawyer, too, faced sexual harassment in the legal world.

The actor's comments came as he discussed the fallout from allegations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein that sent shockwaves through Hollywood in recent weeks, reports The Telegraph.

"The whole culture of this is going to have to stop. This isn't just showbiz, it's everywhere. It isn't just Fox News, it's in (Washington) DC clearly," Clooney confessed.

"My wife, who is a human rights lawyer, says she's faced those exact kinds of situations in law. So it's everywhere, it needs to be addressed as a problem for all of us," asserted the Up In The Air star.



Clooney added: "My wife is a very smart, very together, very accomplished human rights lawyer and she said ‘There have been times in my life, in the law community, I had to tell someone to knock it off'. So it happens everywhere."

The actor gave no details of harassment encountered by his British-Lebanese wife in the legal world.

Discussing Weinstein he added that "Harvey's going to get his and deserves it," and said other people in the industry had helped the producer.

Clooney said: "I want to know who took women up to a hotel room and then left them there for Harvey. I want to know who did that."

The Oscar winner hopes that the women who came forward with accusations of sexual harassment and assault against Harvey Weinstein will shift show business toward exposing and expelling more alleged predators.



“This wasn’t just guys hitting on girls, this is assault … If we don’t address this and really go after Harvey, it will come back,” he said.

Clooney also stated, “There has to be some good that comes out of all of this and the good is going to have to be that women feel safe to speak up, that they are believed and hopefully be enough that it scares any man who would behave like that from doing it,” reports PageSix.

Clooney added that moving forward, “Let’s stop having meetings in hotel rooms — you can have it in the restaurant downstairs.”



The Suburbicon director also blasted Woody Allen‘s comments that the Weinstein allegations were akin to a “witch hunt.”

“That’s a stupid thing to say,” Clooney fumed to Variety. “The reality is, it’s not a witch hunt to these women who are trapped in a hotel room and told they’re going to get a part and, suddenly, here comes Harvey Weinstein in his birthday suit. That’s not a witch hunt; that’s an assault.”

Clooney also was pleasantly surprised at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences giving Weinstein the boot almost immediately following the allegations coming to light.

Meanwhile, fellow actor Matt Damon said he had known about an incident in which Gwyneth Paltrow said she was harassed by Weinstein.



Paltrow recently described how, when she was 22, the studio chief summoned her to his hotel room and tried to get her to give him a massage.

She told her then boyfriend Brad Pitt, who confronted Weinstein. Paltrow later had a relationship with Damon's friend Ben Affleck.

Damon said: "I knew the story about Gwyneth from Ben. I knew that story. But I was working with Gwyneth and with Harvey on the 1999 film The Talented Mr Ripley.



"I never talked to Gwyneth about it but Ben told me that whatever or agreement they had come to there was an understanding. And he treated her incredibly respectfully. Always."