Oscar winner George Clooney claims that Hello! Magazine made up an exclusive interview with him, and now the UK publication has admitted that some of the quotes are in fact false.
In a statement released on Friday, the 54-year-old said: “Hello Magazine has printed an ‘EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW’ with me that has been widely picked up and reprinted.”
“Outlets like Vanity Fair, Marie Claire, The Sun, and The Evening Standard have all printed my exclusive interview and credited Hello Magazine. The problem is that I have not given an interview to Hello Magazine and the quotes attributed to me are not accurate.”
“In my experience, being misquoted is not unusual but to have an ‘exclusive interview’ completely fabricated is something new. And a very disturbing trend,” he continued.
The false interview was published on Wednesday, but has since been taken down by the website. It was titled “George Clooney reveals wife Amal Clooney’s most attractive feature,” which apparently had secrets from George about how he and wife Amal make their long-distance relationship work.
After originally defending the interview and saying they were “dismayed” about Clooney’s claims, Hello backtracked and said this:
“HELLO! Group has established that the interview it bought from the Famous agency had, in fact, been culled together from a series of interviews that took place over a period of time, and many of the quotes attributed to Mr Clooney were never made by him.”
“HELLO! Group bought the material in good faith from a trusted independent agent, who assured us it was an authentic one-to-one interview with Mr Clooney, which we now accept was not the case. We are shocked and disappointed to discover that the representations that were made to the HELLO! Group at the time of purchase of the material were not, in fact, true.”
“We apologise unreservedly to Mr Clooney and his wife Amal for any distress that publication of this piece may have caused them and further apologise for conveying the impression that he had given an exclusive interview to HELLO!”
Awkward.
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