George Clooney recounts his bungled proposal to Amal: ‘I’m 52 and I could throw out my hip pretty soon’

George Clooney, in rare form, fumbled through his proposal to his wife, Amal Alamuddin Clooney.

The former Hollywood bachelor dished during a Wednesday taping of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” about how he popped the question to the human rights lawyer, and the suave star didn’t have such a suave go at it.

“It was one of those horrible moments. We didn’t talk about it. It wasn’t like ‘oh, maybe we should get married’ or anything. I plotted the whole thing out,” the 54-year-old told the host.

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The “Hail, Caesar!” star said he hid the ring in a box behind his lady love and had his aunt Rosemary Clooney’s “Why Shouldn’t I” cued up to play during the proposal. He cooked dinner too, but since Amal was just getting back from London, she wanted to order in.

“I’ve got it all set up, timed out, and the song is coming and she gets up to go wash the dishes, which she’s never done,” he said. “And I’m like, ‘What are you doing?’ and she comes back in. And finally I said, ‘You know, I blew out the candle’ and I said, ‘I think the lighter’s in the box behind you.’ And she reached around and she pulls out the box and I’ve got just the ring sitting in there and she pulls it out and she looks at it and she’s like, ‘It’s a ring.’ Like as if somebody had left it there some other time.”

It wasn’t the reaction he wanted, so he started making “all the moves you could do” with his face to get it to click that he was proposing, then finally got down on one knee and asked.

“[I] said, ‘I couldn’t imagine spending the rest of my life without you,’” he said. “And she kept looking at the ring and she was looking at me and she was like ‘Oh my God.’”

Actor George Clooney and his wife, Amal Clooney, attend Universal Pictures’ “Hail, Caesar!” premiere at Regency Village Theatre on Monday in Westwood.

(Kevin Winter / Getty Images)

The whole ordeal lasted about 25 minutes -- he knows this because there was a playlist -- before he got an answer.

“Literally, I said, ‘look, I hope the answer is yes, but I need an answer. I’m 52 and I could throw out my hip pretty soon.”

She said yes, of course, and the couple tied the knot in Venice in September 2014, with 125 people in attendance.

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“It was one of those funny things,” he added. “From the minute we met, we just hit it off and from the minute we met we sort of felt like we were gonna be together.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Clooney talked about his love of pranking and how he’d never pull a prank on his wife.

“She tries war criminals. I could end up at The Hague somehow. Thrown in jail,” he said. “We have a peaceful detente when it comes to that.”

He also played “Never Have I Ever” with singer Rihanna.

On Monday, the actor-producer and the British attorney cozied up at the Westwood red carpet premiere of “Hail, Caesar!” which opens Friday.

Follow me on Twitter @NardineSaad.

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