George Clooney writes letter to press, asks not to publish photos of his kids

Hollywood star George Clooney has penned an open letter to the media organisations around the world, asking them to not publish photographs of his children. Clooney, who shares two kids with wife Amal Clooney, decided to write the letter after a British tabloid published photos of actor Billie Lourd and her baby, reported Deadline.

“Having just seen photos of Billie Lourd’s one-year-old baby in your publication, and the fact that you subsequently took those pictures down, we would request that you refrain from putting our children’s faces in your publication.

“I am a public figure and accept the oftentimes intrusive photos as part of the price to pay for doing my job. Our children have made no such commitment,” the 60-year-old actor said.

Clooney asserted that having photos of his children on the internet could put their lives at risk due to his wife Amal’s job as a human rights lawyer.  “The nature of my wife’s work has her confronting and putting on trial terrorist groups and we take as much precaution as we can to keep our family safe. We cannot protect our children if any publication puts their faces on their cover.

“We have never sold a picture of our kids, we are not on social media and never post pictures because to do so would put their lives in jeopardy. Not paranoid jeopardy but real world issues, with real world consequences,” he added.

The actor concluded by saying that he hopes the media’s “need to sell advertisement” is not greater than the need to “keep innocent children from being targeted”.

George Clooney is not the first Hollywood celebrity to have made request to publication houses to not publish photos of their children. Earlier stars Blake Lively, Gigi Hadid, Ashton Kutcher, Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas, Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom and Gigi Hadid and Zayn Malik have also made a similar request. 

-with PTI inputs