American actor George Clooney, his wife, human rights lawyer Amal and their two children have been awarded French citizenship, the government said.
Their farm in the south of France serves as the family’s primary residence. The couple purchased the home in 2021.
“I was worried about raising our kids in L.A., in the culture of Hollywood,” George Clooney said in an Esquire magazine interview earlier this year. “I don’t want them to be walking around worried about paparazzi. I don’t want them being compared to somebody else’s famous kids.”
Their new citizenship was made public in the Journal Officiel, where French government decrees are published.
“We live on a farm in France,” Clooney told Esquire. “A good portion of my life growing up was on a farm, and as a kid, I hated the whole idea of it.
“But now, for them, it’s like – they’re not on their iPads, you know? They have dinner with grown-ups and have to take their dishes in. They have a much better life.”
The family lives in Brignoles, in the south of France, where they lead a normal life, according to the city’s mayor.
Didier Brémond told broadcaster BFMTV that the Clooneys are “a very simple and very accessible family”.
Their decision to become French citizens was a testament to “his love for our country,” the mayor said.
“Here, he wants to live normally, and that’s what he is trying to do,” he said.
In addition to their home in France, George Clooney also owns a home in the UK and in Kentucky, where he was born, according to the New York Times.
The Clooneys’ twins, Ella and Alexander, were born in London in 2017.
Their mother was born in Lebanon and raised in the UK.
The Journal Officiel shows Amal Clooney was naturalised under her maiden name, Amal Alamuddin.
The adjustment to French life appears to be easier for Amal Clooney and her children than for her husband.
George Clooney described his wife and children’s French as perfect in a recent interview promoting his new movie Jay Kelly.
The actor, however, described his French as “horrible,” despite trying to teach himself the language using an app.
“They speak French in front of me so that they can say terrible things about me to my face, and I don’t know,” he joked, speaking to French broadcaster Canal+.
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