George Clooney called out Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn for calling President Barack Obama “an asshole” during a heated dinner debate at a Vegas restaurant last month, and now Wynn has called out Clooney out for being a “money coddled.”
Wynn addressed the confrontation on Friday during a Bloomberg interview with Stephanie Ruhle on “Market Makers.” He denied hurling the insult at Obama, and said Hollywood stars like Clooney “live in a very strange bubble of their own.”
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“They’re money coddled, they’re highly privileged. We are talking about successful artists like George, Barbra Streisand … they live in a relatively small world, the people around them are very solicitous and caring of them,” Wynn said. “They have a world view that is: therefore everything should be given to everybody because everything has been given to them.”
The businessman reportedly worth almost $3 billion, on the other hand, suggested his bubble is much bigger than Clooney’s because he’s the CEO of a company, and “responsible for a lot of people.”
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“You have to protect the enterprise in order to take care of the employees. So therefore, you can’t be wasteful, you can’t squander things, or you jeopardize people,” Wynn continued. “Running a business gives you a sense of compassion that is defined in different terms than someone who just thinks of themselves as generous who lives in a single-o environment.”
Wynn’s comments come a week after Clooney released a statement addressing an argument that erupted at a restaurant inside Wynn’s Encore hotel during a dinner, which Clooney’s Casamigos tequila business partners and CAA executives also attended.
“I said that the President was my longtime friend and then he said ‘your friend is an asshole’ … At that point I told Steve that HE was an asshole and that I wasn’t going to sit at his table while he was being such a jackass. And I walked out,” Clooney said. “There were obviously quite a few more adjectives and adverbs used by both of us as I left. Those are all the facts. It had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with character.”
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Wynn, however, is denying at least two of those expletives, while subtly jabbing Clooney’s character.
“George Clooney is fun to be with … you just have to watch your timing. And I didn’t call the president an asshole. And George did not call me an asshole,” Wynn said. “He was a little into the tequila, but he is fun to be with. He is a good storyteller.”