Did George Clooney leave the United States permanently for England after Donald Trump was elected president in 2024, with Clooney saying he "can't take the red wave anymore"? No, that's not true: This originated from SpaceX Fanclub, a Facebook page with a satire disclaimer: "We post SATIRE, nothing on this page is real." The first comment under the post included a link to an article about the same topic on the self-described satire website esspots.com.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on December 8, 2024. It said:
George Clooney Leaves The US Permanently. Shifts To England 'Can't Take The Red Wave Anymore' - Satire
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu Dec 12 19:50:21 2024 UTC)
The caption on the image clearly states "Satire," and the Facebook page that posted it, SpaceX Fanclub, is self-described as a "Satire/Parody" page with an intro that reads:
We post SATIRE, nothing on this page is real.
The first comment under the post contains a link to the full article (archived here) on the website esspots.com. At the top of the article, the word "SATIRE" is visible twice, once in the yellow bar above the headline and once next to the date below the headline, as shown in a screenshot of the website below:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu Dec 12 19:51:34 2024 UTC)
Had Clooney, one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, actually announced that he was leaving the United States permanently after Trump won the presidential election, this would have been national and international news. A Google search (archived here) and a search on Google News (archived here) found no actual news stories.
Esspots' "About Us" page (archived here) has a clear disclaimer that, at the time of this publication, read:
Welcome to the US page of Esspots (A Subsidiary of SpaceXMania.com specializing in Satire and Parody News), your one-stop destination for satirical news and commentary about the United States of America. Our team of writers and editors is dedicated to bringing you the latest and greatest in fake news and absurdity, all with a healthy dose of humor and satire.
Lead Stories has a Satire Policy on its website that explains when we fact check satire and when we don't:
What do we consider not to be satire?
Sometimes articles from humor or satire publications are copied by other sites and presented as real. In such cases we will label the copies as 'False'.
We reached out to Clooney's representative, who told us via email on December 12, 2024, that they do not comment on the personal lives of their clients.
At the time this was written, Snopes had reviewed the same claim.
Other Lead Stories fact checks about George Clooney can be found here.
