[private joker]

Last time I reported an incident about sleazebag Wayne Brady and got flamed for it, but I have not been deterred.

This is a story from a good friend of mine who worked for Section Eight, the production company Clooney ran with Steven Soderbergh.

Perennial bachelor Clooney had been living with his girlfriend for 2 years. Very cool chick, evidently, they got along well, but then eventually split up -- and did so on very good terms. Clooney paid for the girl's law school tuition, gave her a new car, and $250,000 just to be nice. Then she moved out.

Then a year later, my friend gets a fax in the office. It's from the girl's attorney. Apparently she filed for a common law marriage with Clooney, since they had been living together long enough. With California's common law marriage statutes, she was due much more cash than the quarter mil he gave her. My friend didn't want to deliver the fax so he gave it to Clooney's assistant, who then waited for GC to come out of his office and handed the fax to him. Clooney read it silently, then slammed his fist into the wall, making a big hole.

Shortly thereafter, Clooney settled out of court with the girl because he didn't want any of this to get into the papers. He grabbed a marker on the office desk, went over to the hole that was still in the wall, and wrote a figure next to it: "7.5 million dollars."