Ladies, start your engines: George Clooney is back on the market. The humanitarian/Oscar-nominated eternal bachelor has called it quits with Italian TV personality Elisabetta Canalis, nearly two years after the couple went public with their romance at the Venice Film Festival in Sept. 2009.
“We are not together anymore,” the now exes said in a joint statement Wednesday. “It’s very difficult and very personal and we hope everyone can respect our privacy.”
It looks like George will be attending this year’s Italian film fest solo. The Ides of March, Clooney’s highly anticipated new movie about a US presidential campaign, will open this year’s Venice Film Festival on Aug. 31, organizers said Wednesday. The movie will be competing for the coveted Golden Lion award.
Just last week, Hello! Magazine reported that Clooney, 50, and Canalis, 32, enjoyed a romantic candlelit dinner together in Cernobbio, near his Lake Como home. We wonder if Elisabetta’s recent declaration about marriage had anything to do with the lovers’ parting of the ways?
Earlier this month, Canalis dismissed the split rumors to Italian weekly Chi. She even seemed to suggest that the couple might one day tie the knot — despite George’s notorious commitment phobia.
“I could never be with someone who every time he opens his mouth says he doesn’t want a child with me or to marry me,” she told the magazine.