Amal Clooney is taking on ISIS, and her husband George Clooney is understandably nervous about security.
“Everything changes when you have two kids on how you have to protect them,” George said on a recent episode of The Hollywood Reporter‘s Awards Chatter podcast. “My wife is taking the first case against ISIS to court, so we have plenty of issues — real, proper security issues — that we have to deal with on a fairly daily basis.”
Amal’s fight for justice is much different than other celebs who use their platform for good; this is her actual full-time job. She is a human rights lawyer who last month asked the United Nation’s Security Council to prosecute Islamic State Extremists in Iraq and Syria on charges of sexual violence, according to the Associated Press.
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On the podcast, George talked about his fame and the anonymity he gave up for it — and what that means for his family. He and Amal are parents to twins Ella and Alexander and keeping them safe is their top priority. The two are already denied small luxuries like walking their kids in Central Park because swarming fans and photographers want a shot of the rarely photographed kids and the Ocean’s 11 star.
Now that Amal is taking on this case against ISIS, however, they have a lot more to worry about than tourists who just want to take a selfie with a Hollywood star.
“We don’t really want our kids to be targets, so we have to pay attention to that,” he said.
Just because he’s worried, doesn’t mean he isn’t behind Amal’s professional efforts. When she first announced she will be representing Nadia Murad, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was kidnapped by ISIS as a 21-year-old and sold several times, she said she had the full support of her husband.
As a couple, the pair have a definite activist streak. Last year they opened up their home in Kentucky to Hazim Avdal, a young Yazidi man who fled ISIS in war-torn Iraq. They also helped him fulfil his dreams of studying in the United States; he now attends the University of Chicago.
Back in September 2017, George told The Hollywood Reporter that he and Amal would collectively put $20 million (£15.7 million) in The Clooney Foundation that would directly go towards supporting refugees.