George Clooney Reveals An Unsettling Detail About His Motorcycle Crash

If there are two things that George Clooney loves in his life more than his family, it's motorcycles and his Italian retreat in Lake Como, where he often spends time with wife Amal Clooney and their two children, Ella and Alexander. In fact, the Clooneys spend so much time in Italy that George said his twins are fluent in Italian. During an appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" in 2020, George revealed, "We did a really dumb thing, which is, they speak fluent Italian. I mean fluent Italian, at 3. But I don't speak Italian, my wife doesn't speak Italian, so we've armed them with a language," adding that, when he asks them to go clean up their rooms, he gets an Italian response. George mimicked them in an accent and said, "Eh, papa stranzo." 

And while George has had his ups and downs with motorcycles over the years — and quite literally, as he was involved in an accident in New Jersey back in 2007 with his then-girlfriend Sarah Lawson, per The New York Times — it was his crash in Italy in 2018 that left some real scars on him. And we don't mean physical scars in this particular case.

George Clooney was in a motorcycle accident during the summer of 2018 while filming the Hulu series "Catch-22" in Italy. During an interview with The Sunday Times, the actor said that he was disturbed over the fact that, while he was laying on the ground, there were people around him filming him during what could have been the last moments of his life. Instead of calling out for help, Clooney said that the strangers were gawking at him and filming him for what could have been social media purposes. He said, "If you're in the public eye, what you realize when you're on the ground thinking it's the last minute of your life is that, for some people, it's just going to be entertainment for their Facebook page. I'm a pretty positive guy, but that told me — clearly — that you really are here just for their entertainment."

Luckily, Clooney survived the accident with no major injuries, although he did have to have physical therapy. But, it's the fact that no one cared enough to save his life, and were, instead more fascinated by who he was and the life he had, that has left a lasting impression on him to this day. In other words, Clooney learned the true meaning of "La vita e bella" that day.