George Clooney can do it all. He’s an incredible actor, director, producer, and away from Hollywood, he’s also an activist and a philanthropist. But, it turns out his biggest source of income comes from being a tequila baron.
The story behind how he started out with Casamigos Tequila is actually quite interesting. A few years ago, Clooney and his long-time friend Rande Gerber were building their side-by-side vacation homes in Cabo San Lucas. Since they spent so much time in Mexico, they obviously drank a lot of tequila.
Talking about their idea, Gerber said, “After a couple of months trying a lot of different tequilas, George turned to me and said, ‘Why don’t we just make our own? One that’s perfect for us to drink?’”
© Casamigos Tequila
The pair also brought in their friend Michael Meldman, and when they launched their brand, they didn’t really set out to make money by selling tequila. But, as luck would have it, their little adventure in exploring the world of alcohol netted them a billion dollars.
The company was recently sold for a whopping $1 billion, and while Clooney only took home his portion of the sale, it’s still a huge amount. And, this also resulted in him taking a step back from acting.
© Casamigos Tequila
Honestly, only George Clooney can accidentally start a billion-dollar business. Why don’t these kinds of accidents happen to any us?
He elaborated more on why we don’t see him in a lot of movies these days in an interview with The Sunday Times, saying, “Acting used to be how I paid the rent, but I sold a tequila company for a billion f— dollars. I don’t need money.”
But, that’s not the only reason; he also thinks that since he’s 56, he’s not really ‘the guy that gets the girl’ any more. He said, “Look, I acted for a long time and, you know, I’m 56. I’m not the guy that gets the girl anymore.” And, before anybody disagrees with him, he also quickly added that at least he shouldn’t be that guy.
© Reuters
Unfortunately, we won’t be seeing much of him on the big screen anymore, but he’s not done with Hollywood as of yet. Now, he wants to concentrate more on his work behind the camera, and will only take up a role if he’s really passionate about it.
“I have money,” Clooney said. “So, I can fight to make movies I want to make. If you look at what I’ve been in over the past 15 years, for the most part they weren’t going to get made if I didn’t do them. Nobody was going to make ‘Good Night, and Good Luck’, ‘Michael Clayton’ or ‘Up in the Air’, and I fought to get those out there.”
© Reuters
Since money is not at all an issue for him now, he has full creative freedom, and since he’s so passionate about what he does, it’s obviously going to turn out well.
But, he also made it clear that his departure from acting doesn’t mean that he’s joining politics. “So many people since Trump was elected have really been pushing on me to get more involved in actual politics, specifically at the highest office,” he said. “I don’t have political aspirations.”
So basically, the bottom line is that George Clooney is not really interested in acting or politics, and also he’s rich AF, by accidentally launching one of the fastest-growing tequila brands in the world.