George Clooney Becomes Latest Star To Defend Mark Ruffalo After Controversial Genocide Remarks

George Clooney used a press conference at the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday morning to defend fellow actor Mark Ruffalo from charges of antisemitism.

Left-wing Avengers: Doomsday and Spider-Man: Brand New Day star Ruffalo was accused of “antisemitic tropes” after he commented on Paramount’s ongoing attempt to merge with Warner Bros. and possible threats that business deal allegedly posed to the ongoing viability of Hollywood, as Breitbart News reported.

He accused the Ellison family of being complicit in the “genocide” against Palestinians as part of his Paramount-Warner merger attack. David Ellison is the CEO of Paramount Skydance which Ruffalo called “inhuman.”

The controversy was highlighted in a question asked by Variety’s Elsa Keslassy. Clooney responded:

I support Mark Ruffalo’s ability to speak freely.

It’s ridiculous. We’re not going to ban speech. I believe in free speech even when I completely disagree with it. That’s important. In fact, it’s part of how democracy works.

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Clooney went on to call the pending merger “a complicated thing” and suggested he “doesn’t know how it works out.”

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Good for Paramount, pushing back hard against the disgusting and (at best) ignorant “genocide” smears from Ruffalo. https://t.co/XvVlVfYjoP

— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) August 22, 2026

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Here's @MarkRuffalo speaking with @mehdirhasan .

Notice how many times he feels the need to regurtitate the word "genocide". It's repeated several times throughout this short clip. One could argue it's a case of needing to repeat it so often in order to convince himself that… pic.twitter.com/cH8TtUURbI

— Aɴᴛ (@AntSpeaks) August 29, 2026

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Notice how many times he feels the need to regurtitate the word “genocide”. It’s repeated several times throughout this short clip. One could argue it’s a case of needing to repeat it so often in order to convince himself that it’s true.]

The old adage rings true: “Tell a lie long enough and people will believe it to be true.”

And as you watch this, also notice that it’s the same old buzzwords and tropes being thrown around.

“Scholars and human rights groups say it’s genocide!”

No, they have made accusations of genocide. And many scholars and groups have said that it is not genocide, but there’s no mention of that whatsoever. No mention of the fact that there have been people on the ground in Gaza, like @Mr_Andrew_Fox and @DouglasKMurray, experts in their field who have ruled out “genocide”. But of course, the immediate response to that is “they’re paid by Israel!” or the trope that Mark can be seen pushing here.. “Hasbara”.

And then, of course, there’s the “stolen land” narrative. Mark grew up in a Christian Catholic household. If you believe the land, the Holy Land, is stolen land because Jews have no historical claim or connection to it, then you believe Jews never existed in those lands. And in turn, that makes it impossible for there to have ever been a Jesus Christ.

Watching Mark get so frustrated and emotional here, desperately wanting people to align with his completely and utterly skewed and ill-informed worldview, is akin to watching someone experiencing a delusion desperately trying to convince you that what they’re seeing is real, even though it clearly isn’t.

It’s pathetic, and only reinforces the fact that celebrities should seriously just shut the **** up instead of talking about things they clearly have absolutely no idea about.

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Ruffalo was born without the decency gene. He objected when Trump saved the Yazidis from ISIS genocide. As with all those screaming, "Gaza genocide!" Ruffalo does not oppose genocide. He opposes Jewish survival.

— Ayn Reagan (@AynReagan) August 23, 2026

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“I’m always very optimistic about things,” he said. “We’re at a moment in time that’s unfortunate… that’s an understatement. I do believe that we’re going to get through all of this. I’m old enough to have been through 1968 in the States when every city in the United States was set on fire, and we lost Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy in the same year. There was tons of violence. The capital was surrounded with tanks. We’ve had some other difficult times, but this is one of them,” he said.

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A smiley George Clooney arrives to the #VeniceFilmFestival press conference room and asks journalists “How are you?” in Italian.

Clooney will receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Opening Ceremony tonight pic.twitter.com/3Bl8Df7mqT

— Deadline (@DEADLINE) September 2, 2026

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