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George and Amal Clooney hold many titles between them, from A-list actor to human rights lawyer, director, philanthropist, and more. In June of 2017, they added Mom and Dad to that list with the birth of their twins, Alexander and Ella.
The couple's foray into parenthood came three years after their star-studded Italian wedding that capped off a whirlwind romance. But the Clooneys weren't always sure they would be parents. In a 2017 profile by The Hollywood Reporter, George said that he and Amal didn't even discuss kids until after marrying. "There was an assumption that we didn’t want them. And then, after the wedding, Amal and I were talking and we just felt we’d gotten very lucky, both of us, and we should share whatever good luck we’ve got. It would seem self-centered to just have that belong to us.”
In the same interview, George described the doctor's visit in which he and Amal learned they were having twins. "[The doctor] goes, ‘Well, there’s one.’ And I said, ‘Great.’ And then he goes, ‘And there’s the second one.’ And I was like, ‘What?’ We just sat there, staring at that piece of paper they give you, and I kept thinking there was a mistake.”
They welcomed the twins one month prematurely, on June 6, 2017. "This morning Amal and George welcomed Ella and Alexander Clooney into their lives. Ella, Alexander and Amal are all healthy, happy and doing fine," Stan Rosenfield, George's publicist, said in a statement to Reuters. "George is sedated and should recover in a few days."
Knowing that Alexander and Ella would be born into the spotlight, George and Amal thought they could at least give them low-key names. "We figured these kids are going to be looked at a lot and watched and [have their] every move sort of judged, and we wanted them to at least have a break with the name,” George said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight shortly after the twins were born. "We looked for some sort of normal names. We didn't have any great inspiration."
The notoriously private couple have gone above and beyond to shield their children from the public spotlight—Ella and Alexander have never been spotted by the cameras. George, in particular, has expressed concerns about security and privacy, which is why they don’t post photos or allow media access to the kids. "I have a goal of trying to protect, I don’t want pictures of my kids," George told Brad Pitt in an interview with GQ. "We deal in very serious subject matters, with very serious bad guys, and we don’t want to have photos of our kids out there."
Ahead, find everything the Clooneys have shared about Alexander and Ella.
Alexander Clooney
Like his twin sister, Alexander was born on June 6, 2017, in London, England, weighing 5.5 pounds, according to The Hollywood Reporter. George described the birth in the aforementioned interview, saying, “It was wild…everything is conceptual until it’s real. It’s like, ‘Yeah, we’re going to be parents.' And all of a sudden you go: ‘Holy shit. I’m a parent!’ “
Clooney affectionately described his son to ET in 2017 as "a thug already. He's a moose! Literally, he just sits and he eats." Much like his father, he’s inherited a deeply playful nature and an affinity for pranks. In a 2021 interview on WTF with Marc Maron, George described his kids' penchant for pulling pranks and natural sense of humor. "Alexander, every morning, at eight in the morning, bangs on my bedroom door. I go, 'Who is it?' And he goes, 'It is I, Alexander Clooney.' I open up the door, he jumps running in, and I laugh out loud."
Alexander keeps George humble, too—George and Amal shared with E! News that while the kids are unfazed by their parents’ fame, Alexander, in particular, doesn’t believe it. “My son dressed up as Batman not long ago,” the Oscar winner shared at the time. “And he said, ‘I'm Batman.’ I told him I was Batman. He goes, ‘Not really,’ and I was like, ‘You have no idea how accurate you are.’”
Raising kids had an impact on George’s career choices, and he’s been open about his desire to give them a stable environment: "It is a year on the road to direct, and now my kids are of a certain age," he told Pitt. "We’re not going to uproot our kids out of school and run around." He told People a few years later that caring for the twins is the main priority when it comes to decision-making.
Amal, whose work as a lawyer often takes her to dangerous places, has also scaled back. In a 2017 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, George described a deal they struck after becoming parents. Amal wouldn't travel to Azerbaijan, where a client was in jail, if George would forego travel to South Sudan, where he has been involved in anti-corruption efforts.
In the same 2021 interview with People, George discussed his and Amal's plans to take on less work in the near future. "In marriage, and now with the kids, you give away the selfishness of only looking out for yourself," he shared. "It's a wonderful thing. Amal and I talk about it every day. We feel so lucky."
Ella Clooney
Ella Clooney was born on June 6, 2017, one minute and 49 seconds after her brother Alexander, weighing 4.5 pounds.
According to their parents, both Ella and her brother speak English, French, and Italian. It's fitting for such well-traveled kids—the Clooneys own homes in England, Lake Como, Los Angeles, and New York. "We've made a terrible mistake," Clooney shared to CBS This Morning, explaining, "We taught them Italian, but we don't speak Italian, so we've armed them with a language they can harm us with. And we don't really know what they're saying."
According to her father, Ella has inherited her mother’s poise. A few weeks after the twins were born, George described Ella to ET as "very elegant and dainty,” adding, "She looks like Amal, thank God.” She also resembles her mother in terms of their love for fashion. In 2019, George spoke with Ellen DeGeneres of Ella’s inherited sense of taste: "My daughter is up in my wife's closet with purses going, 'Mine!' So I see this is going to be a fun, fun life for me."
In 2021, George shared with The Guardian that "Alexander loves to laugh and Ella's very serious, always making sure everybody plays by the rules." But much like her brother, she eventually took up pranking. Speaking to Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush on Today in 2021, he shared that his “whole job is to teach them terrible things.” He adds, "I really do enjoy teaching my children to do things that shock their mother," he said. "My daughter has now picked up the mantle. She used to think it was really gross, all the things we did, but then she saw how many laughs Alexander got and now she's taken it up, too."
Still, George knows his place—and that place is not in the salon chair, despite his recent hair transformation for his Broadway show Good Night, and Good Luck. He knows better than to cut Ella’s hair, telling W in 2021 that it would be an issue. "I haven’t cut my daughter’s hair,” the actor shared. "I’d get in trouble if I did. If I screw up my son’s hair, he’ll grow out of it. But my wife would kill me if I touched my daughter’s hair."
In 2025, George shared insights on his kids' taste in music in movies, explaining that both twins are fans of Taylor Swift and are looking forward to the second Wicked movie.
Though the Clooney kids may live largely unrelatable lives, George and Amal want the same things for them as any parent. As George told The Hollywood Reporter, "I want them to be happy. I want them to have a sense of humor. I want them to be interested in things. I want them to be compassionate about other people’s plights."
