I’m sure there are plenty of folks who would go on a date with George Clooney if he were single and the opportunity presented itself. I mean, he was Sexiest Man Alive twice, and he’s got charisma to spare. However, when Sara Foster, an executive producer on Nobody Wants This, got set up with the Ocean’s Eleven star years ago, she did not want him at all.
To be clear, this story takes place a long time before Clooney and his now-wife of over a decade, Amal Clooney, were together. In fact, Sara Foster said it happened “like 30 years ago” on her podcast, The World’s First Podcast with Erin & Sara Foster. She explained her feelings about this setup too, bluntly saying:
Do you guys know that I got set up with George Clooney like 30 years ago, and it was such a blah? Sorry, had to say it.
Now, before you start dropping your jaw, hear her out. Sara Foster explained that she was “24 maybe” when her two friends set her up with Clooney, and she’s about two decades younger than him. According to her, after meeting up with him and two of her friends, she concluded that going on a date with him was a “hard no” for that reason, too.
Sara then asked her sister, Erin, if she’d heard this story before, and she said no. That is wild, you’d think this would have come up at some point. However, Erin confirmed that she had “never” heard the tale before. That led to Sara recalling her feelings about the actor at the time. She said:
I remember just thinking, ‘Oh, he is so old.’…I always say that when I see these young girls dating older guys. Like, yes, of course, sometimes it makes sense, and it’s all the things. [But] I’ve never understood a 19-year-old that’s into a 40-year-old. I just always thought that was so weird. And I just remember being offended that they would set me up with him because he felt so old at the time.
Listen, there’s a time and a place for age-gap romances, and Sara made that clear. However, it was not the time, place or person for her. For context, she is 44 years old now, and Clooney is 64. That’s a full 20-year age gap, and it was something she wasn’t on board with, as she explained:
I’m sure George Clooney is a nice guy, but I just remember it being the four of us sitting there and thinking like, ‘I’m gonna die, like I’m gonna die. I’m so sad over the other one. And then, here’s this one, who just feels like a grandpa.’ And it was like depressing. I was so depressed.
As they continued to joke about her not being into “the heartthrob of America,” Sara made it clear why that was the case. Really, it didn’t have much to do with George Clooney personally, as she explained:
I also think it wasn’t George being like, ‘Oh, set me up with Sara Foster.’ I think it was more like Rande and Cindy being like, ‘We know someone great.’ I don’t think he was that into it either. I started crying about my ex to him. So I think he was like, ‘This chick’s not OK.’
Well, clearly, everything turned out fine for everyone involved here. Sara Foster and her sister Erin work on the hit show Nobody Wants This, and Season 3 is on the way. Meanwhile, Clooney released Jay Kelly last year and has made it clear that Ocean’s 14 is in the works. He and Amal are also happily married and have kids.
So, while nobody seemed to want this date, it made for one hell of a story. It also serves as a good reminder to check out both Sara Foster and George Clooney’s work, seeing as both Nobody Wants This and Jay Kelly are available with a Netflix subscription.
