Greg Gilman at The Wrap has the details on how actor George Clooney fiercely came to the defense of his "longtime friend" Barack Obama in an argument with Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn two weeks ago.
Wynn told the Las Vegas Review Journal that Clooney “got drunk” from downing tequila shots and stormed off after delivering an F-bomb. Clooney "stood up and threw a hissy fit” when one of two CAA executives also seated at the table told a joke about former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev. Wynn says he rubbed Clooney the wrong way when the actor “sat down and started talking about the Affordable Care Act.”
“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 at his table while he was being such a jackass. And I walked out,” added the Oscar winner.
“There were obviously quite a few more adjectives and adverbs used by both of us as I left,” Clooney's statement concluded. “Those are all the facts. It had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with character.”
That's not how Wynn described the argument:
“Then he sat down and started talking about the Affordable Care Act, and that’s when I spoke up,” said Wynn, a frequent critic of Obamacare. “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. He got up and said, ‘I don’t have to listen to this (expletive) stuff. The only person who got excited at the table was George, and he ran off to another bar.”
Clooney’s partners were “mortified,” Wynn said. “Clooney’s fun to be with when he’s sober,” Wynn added. “If you have a chance to drink with him, you want to get there early, and don’t stay late.
“Everybody who’s in my business, the casino business, knows to take actors with a grain of salt."
