George Clooney Recalls His “Disaster” Proposal to Wife Amal

One fine day, George Clooney proposed to Amal Clooney—and it didn’t go as planned.

The ER actor recently recalled the moment he popped the question to wife Amal. But it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing. As George put it in an Oct. 21 appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show, “It was a disaster.”

As the 61-year-old explained, his plan of action was to have Amal discover the ring at dinner while music from his aunt Rosemary Clooney played. As soon as the tune began, George prompted Amal to reach for a box containing a lighter to re-light a candle he conveniently blew out.

“I go, ‘I think there’s a lighter, could re-light the candle…I think there’s a lighter in that little box,'” George recalled, “And she pulls this thing out, this little drawer, and there’s a diamond ring in there.”

So, how did Amal react? Well, per George’s impression, it didn’t click right away. “She looks at it and she’s like, ‘There’s a ring in there,'” he joked while rolling his eyes. “Like somebody left a ring there years ago”