Friends of George Clooney, take note: Your pal has your back.
In Las Vegas earlier this month, Clooney defended President Obama after casino mogul Steve Wynn called him an "asshole." During a dinner at the swanky Botero restaurant inside of Wynn's Encore hotel, reports Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Norm Clarke, the topic of conversation turned to the Affordable Care Act. That's when Wynn called Obama the A-word.
"There were nine people at that table... so you can ask them.... Steve likes to go on rants.... He called the president an asshole.... That is a fact," Clooney said in a statement released to The Hollywood Reporter by his publicist. "I said that the president was my longtime friend and then he said 'your friend is an asshole'.... At that point, I told Steve that he was an asshole and that I wasn't going to sit as his table while he was being a jackass, and I walked out.... Those are all the facts. It had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with character."
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As for Wynn, he told Clarke that Clooney was drunk and that everyone in "the casino business knows to take actors with a grain of salt."
"He sat down and started talking about the Affordable Care Act, and that's when I spoke up," Wynn continued. "He didn't like that either. I think my discussion about the Affordable Care Act was the straw that broke the camel's back. When he's drinking, he considers himself a close personal buddy of the president."
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