Actor and activist George Clooney shared insight into his relationship with former President Barack Obama on Wednesday, saying he once dominated him on the basketball court but that the pair continues to exchange risque text messages.
“I shot the lights out that day,” Clooney told the Hollywood Reporter in an interview published Wednesday, recalling a night in which Obama stayed at Clooney’s home in England in June. “I think it really bothered him.”
He and the former president still keep in touch though but sometimes the topics of conversation discussed over text veered into racy territory, Clooney admitted.
“A little bit,” Clooney said before referencing former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, who was fired after giving an explosive interview to the New Yorker. “Not Scaramucci-racy, but … you know, I have over the years with my friends said a lot of really [outrageous things].”
In the wide-ranging interview designed to promote his upcoming film “Suburbicon,” Clooney also commented on the Sony Pictures hacking scandal in which chairman Amy Pascal was caught joking that Obama would like movies with African-American leads like “The Butler.”
“It’s unfortunate that it was also racist, about the president, and that’s not a very smooth maneuver,” he said.
Clooney supported Obama in both his 2008 and 2012 election campaigns, meeting with him in 2010 at the White House to discuss the humanitarian situation in Sudan and South Sudan.
