George Clooney has confirmed a story that’s been floating around for a number of years that he once gave 14 of his closest friends $1m (£753K) each in suitcases stuffed with notes.

In a tale straight out of one of his hit films, the Oceans 11 star corroborated the story in an interview with GQ as he was named the magazine’s Icon of the Year.

The actor’s close friend and business partner Rande Gerber first relayed the story about the suitcases stuffed with cash back in 2017, but this is the first time George has explained why he decided to do it. 

“Amal and I had just met, but we weren’t dating at all,” George told GQ. “I was a single guy. All of us were aging. I was 52 or something. And most of my friends are older than me.”

“And I thought, what I do have are these guys who’ve all, over a period of 35 years, helped me in one way or another,” he said, listing everything his friends had done for him.

“They helped me when I needed help over the years. And I’ve helped them over the years. We’re all good friends,” he said. “And I thought, you know, without them I don’t have any of this. And we’re all really close, and I just thought basically if I get hit by a bus, they’re all in the will. So why the fuck am I waiting to get hit by a bus?”

George explained that he got hold of a van with ‘Florist’ painted on the side of it and picked up the cash from a location in Los Angeles that housed “giant pallets” of money.

Alongside “a couple of security guys that were shitting themselves,” the Hollywood star stuffed the goods into 14 Tumi suitcases and instructed his mates to swing by his house the following day.

“And I just held up a map and I just pointed to all the places I got to go in the world and all the things I’ve gotten to see because of them,” he told the magazine.

“And I said, ‘How do you repay people like that?’ And I said, ‘Oh, well: How about a million bucks?’ And the fun part about it was: That was the 27th, the 28th of September,” he said. “A year later, on the 27th of September, just by happenstance, was the day I got married.” 

Randy Gerber, who is married to Cindy Crawford and is a successful businessman, previously said that he tried to give the money back to his famous friend at the time ― but the actor wasn’t having of any it.

“I pull him aside and said, ‘I absolutely am not taking this million dollars,’” Randy said. “Immediately George goes, ’I’m just going to make one announcement. If Rande doesn’t take the million dollars, nobody gets their money.”