George Clooney Says Leonardo DiCaprio Can’t Back Up His Sh*t Talk

The latest issue of Esquire features George Clooney who ends up talking sh*t about Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe because, honestly, these guys need to pull their head out of their asses. Clooney, who says DiCaprio is always surrounded by yes-men, tells a story of when he played basketball with Leo and his friends. Leo and his crew thought they were pretty good at pick up basketball, but that’s only because they had no one around that would tell them otherwise.

Clooney suggested they might play [basketball] someday. DiCaprio said sure, but felt compelled to add, “You know, we’re pretty serious.” They played at a neighborhood court. “You know, I can play,” Clooney says in his living room. “I’m not great, by any means, but I played high school basketball, and I know I can play. I also know that you don’t talk sh-t unless you can play. And the thing about playing Leo is you have all these guys talking sh-t. We get there, and there’s this guy, Danny A I think his name is. Danny A is this club kid from New York. And he comes up to me and says, ‘We played once at Chelsea Piers. I kicked your ass.’ I said, ‘I’ve only played at Chelsea Piers once in my life and ran the table. So if we played, you didn’t kick anybody’s ass.’ And so then we’re watching them warm up, and they’re doing this weave around the court, and one of the guys I play with says, ‘You know we’re going to kill these guys, right?’ Because they can’t play at all. We’re all like fifty years old, and we beat them three straight: 11–0, 11–0, 11–0. And the discrepancy between their game and how they talked about their game made me think of how important it is to have someone in your life to tell you what’s what. I’m not sure if Leo has someone like that.”

One of the downsides of being surrounded by sycophants is it feels a lot worse when you’re taught humility. That’s why all my friends constantly criticize me and tell me what a terrible person I am. Thanks guys! *Whimpers softly*

Clooney also touched on his feud with Russell Crowe back in the day. Crowe called him, Harrison Ford and Robert De Niro sellouts and Clooney ragged on Crowe for starting a band. Things didn’t end well. Well, it did, but not on good terms.

“The truth is that [Crowe] did send me a book of poems to apologize for insulting the s**t out of me, which he did. He picked a fight with me. He started it for no reason at all. He put out this thing saying, ‘George Clooney, Harrison Ford, and Robert De Niro are sellouts.’ And I put out a statement saying, ‘He’s probably right. And I’m glad he told us, ’cause Bob and Harrison and I were also thinking about starting a band, which would also fall under the heading of bad use of celebrity.’ And that’s when he really went off on me. ‘Who the f–k does this guy think he is? He’s a Frank Sinatra wannabe.’ He really went after me. And so I sent him a note going, ‘Dude, the only people who succeed when two famous people are fighting is People magazine. What the f–k is wrong with you?’ But then I had a year. Then I had Syriana and Good Night, and Good Luck, and he was gonna see me at the Golden Globes ’cause he was nominated for Cinderella Man. So he sends me a disc of his music and a thing of his poetry. I think he said, ‘I was all misquoted,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah. Whatever.’”

The worst way to apologize to someone is to give them a copy of your cd and a book of your poetry. You might as well just scream at the top of your lungs, “Hey, I’m a pretentious dick.”