HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — George Clooney is on the prowl for a mystery caller who urged him to dump girlfriend Sarah Larson.
In an interview with the New Yorker, the 46-year-old actor reveals he asked a police officer, who also acts as his chauffeur, to track down the individual who made the call from a pre-paid mobile phone.
The following exchange appears in writer Ian Parker's interview with the "Leatherheads" star:
"You haven't heard the message we had?" Clooney asked Sarah Larson, when they were sitting on the sofa in L.A. "It's about you, you know."
She was a little taken aback. "What?" she said. "What?"
"It's right here. Listen to this." He stood up and tried to make the telephone give up its voicemail. "Is this the volume? Where's the volume? I'm losing my mind." (His friends say that he is not good with domestic technology: he later told me that he had no real idea how to use the Internet; and he had a bit of trouble with the espresso maker that he is paid a fortune to advertise in Europe.) Someone had repeatedly called on his private line, and had then left an odd message. "It's not a prank--none of my friends would do that," Clooney said. He found the right switch, and we heard a calm, middle-aged male voice: "Dude, your friends asked me to give you a message: Dump the bitch before you're sorry."
After a moment's pause, Larson said, " 'Before you're sorry'?"
" 'Before you're sorry,' " Clooney said, with a laugh. " 'Dump the bitch before you're sorry.' " The message was perhaps fan mail of a perverse kind, from a Clooney admirer in some way disappointed with Larson--for being young, or for being a non-celebrity and therefore an interloper. (There's been some unpleasant press, and Larson brought it up with me: "They say that I'm a stripper. There's a ton of stuff about that. I've never been a stripper. You know, just because I'm from Las Vegas I must be a stripper. Because I'm a cocktail server that means I'm an escort.") Or it might have been a wrong number. Larson was not aghast, but she did not seem quite comfortable, either. Clooney, though, was punchy, seeming to accept the voicemail as no more than a test of his good humor: a chance to reconfirm his efficient, uncomplaining handling of the complications of a public life.
He said that, with the help of his police-officer driver, the number had been traced to a pre-paid cell phone. Now they were trying to find out if the suspect had paid by credit card. But--Clooney laughed--"there are certain laws that, you know, that are applicable." And then, to Larson: "It's wild, isn't it? Isn't that interesting?"
"Yeah," Larson said.
Clooney and Larson have been dating since last year after meeting at the "Ocean's Thirteen" premiere party at The Palms Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. The 28-year-old Larson is a former part-time model and worked as a cocktail waitress at The Palms.
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