Clooney: Celebs who use Twitter are morons

Actor George Clooney has branded celebrities who use Twitter as “morons” and branded the social networking site as “just stupid”.

The Hollywood giant, who has been involved in a public spat with fellow actor Russell Crowe, told the January issue of Esquire magazine that stars of Hollywood’s “golden era” would have struggled to cope with the demands made of celebrities today.

Clooney said: “I think anyone who is famous is a moron if they’re on Twitter . . . It’s just stupid.

By George! Check out Esquire's January cover: http://t.co/vOxLdLheh4 pic.twitter.com/swjOOqaAg8

— Esquire UK (@EsquireUK) December 4, 2013

“Not that I’m comparing myself to Clark Gable, or whoever, but they couldn’t survive in this environment . . . They’d punch the shit out of some people. It requires a kind of Zen quality.

“There’s a funny thing about fame. You run as fast as you can towards it because it’s everything you want. Not just the fame but what it represents, meaning work, meaning opportunity.

“Then you get there and it’s shocking how immediately you become enveloped in this world that is incredibly restricting . . . I haven’t walked in Central Park for 15 years. I’d like to.”

Clooney also revealed an ongoing spat between himself and actor/musician Russell Crowe which began after Crowe criticised Clooney’s appearances in TV adverts.

“He picked a fight with me,” Clooney, 52, said

“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, because Bob and Harrison and I were thinking about starting a band, which would also fall under the heading of bad use of celebrity.

“I sent him a note going, ‘Dude, the only people who succeed when two famous people are fighting is People magazine. What is wrong with you?’”

Clooney claimed Crowe tried to apologise by giving him a gift.

“He sends me a disc of his music and a book of his poetry. I think he said, ‘I was all misquoted’, and I was like, ‘yeah, whatever’.”

Meanwhile the British government will from today issue guidance to Twitter and Facebook users about how they can avoid “inadvertently breaking the law” by revealing banned information from court cases.

Legal advisories previously sent only to the mainstream media will be published on social media networks in recognition of the fact that newspapers and television no longer have a monopoly on news.

There are strict rules in place in Britain on what can be reported or publicly discussed about a court case, with heavy fines levied on those deemed to have prejudiced a fair trial, while it is also illegal to identify the victims of some crimes.

But these rules are increasingly being broken by users of social networks, often through ignorance.

Last week socialite Peaches Geldof tweeted the names of two mothers whose babies were involved in sexual abuse orchestrated by disgraced rock star Ian Watkins, the lead singer of the Lostprophets.

Geldof, the daughter of Live Aid founder and Boomtown Rats singer Bob Geldof, apologised and swiftly deleted the tweets, which risked breaking the law protecting the identity of victims in sexual offences cases.

Police are considering whether to press charges — although in her defence, it emerged afterwards that the mothers’ names were accidentally included on a courts listing website.