George Clooney says he's no saint when it comes to running for office, but he knows he can parlay his star power to advocate for a good cause.

"I didn't live my life in the right way for politics, you know," he told Newsweek while stationed in Sudan, where he's sublimating his celebrity status to help people fight for their rights. He said he slept with "too many chicks and did too many drugs, and that's the truth."

So if he were to run, he says he'd "start from the beginning by saying, 'I did it all. I drank the bong water. Now let's talk about issues.' That's gonna be my campaign slogan: 'I drank the bong water'?" he jokes.

Are you listening, Miley Cyrus?

So why the political talk from the two-time Sexiest Man Alive? Clooney, who has spent quite a bit of his time lately doing humanitarian work in the oil-rich African country, is set to play a less-than-perfect man running for president in "The Ides of March." The film, which he also directed and co-wrote, also stars Ryan Gosling and Marisa Tomei.

The "Up In the Air" star said he looked to U2's Bono as the model for directing attention to passion projects.

"Celebrity can help focus news media where they have abdicated their responsibility. We can't make policy, but we can 'encourage' politicians more than ever before." And if the paparazzi come to Sudan as a result, that's OK with him. "If they're going to follow me anyway," he said, "I want them to follow me here."

Still, the A-lister is aware that, despite all his stardust, it's difficult to get Americans interested in his cause -- and that's why he jokes about creating "The Real Housewives of Sudan."

Dashing hero or evil genius? Let us know in comments.

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George Clooney lobbies for attention to the situation in Sudan

-- Nardine Saad
Twitter.com/NardineSaad

Photo: George Clooney stands outside a polling station on the first day of voting in the southern Sudanese capital city of Juba on Jan. 9. Credit: Pete Muller / Associated Press

Natalie Portman says she'd take parenting advice from "No Strings Attached" costar Ashton Kutcher.

The newly knocked-up actress told MTV News that Kutcher would come to their movie set with sweet stories about advice he gave his stepdaughters, which showed her that he was a committed parent to Demi Moore's kids.

Did we mention that everyone's all up in Portman's business these days?

Recently engaged to choreographer Benjamin Millepied, she oh-so-ungraciously included mention of their sex life in her Golden Globes acceptance speech.

The once-private starlet is basking in the limelight thanks to critical acclaim for playing a psycho-ballerina in "Black Swan." Honestly, we think awards should go to the actors who take on roles where they have to naturally pack on the pounds, then shed them by award season. Hear that, George Clooney, Jake Gyllenhaal and Matt Damon?

Pounds or no pounds, she's likely getting more awards if "Strings" doesn't ruin her chances, as "Norbit" did for Eddie Murphy. Her laugh has also taken on a life of its own.

"The weird thing is people knowing about something that's so private," she told MTV about her pregnancy. "But I mean, you get used to it. It's just wild to walk down the street and have a complete stranger be like, 'Congratulations!'"

George Clooney and malaria can be truthfully linked in the same sentence. But shoot, Piers Morgan sure does know how to draw a crowd, firing off a rather tabloid-esque tweet on Thursday: "BREAKING NEWS: George Clooney has contracted malaria following recent trip to Sudan."

Oh, what a difference a verb tense makes.

How about, "George Clooney got malaria in Sudan"? That was the much less dire tweet a couple of hours later. Seems Clooney did pick up malaria on his early January trip to the African nation, but since then has gotten medication and is now fine. And by the way, he's on Piers' new show Friday night!

"George is completely over the malaria," his representative said in a statement, noting that it was the actor's second bout with the disease and adding, "This illustrates how with proper medication, the most lethal condition in Africa, can be reduced to a bad ten days instead of a death sentence."

Clooney had been traveling to Sudan to encourage diplomatic efforts to head off a civil war ahead of the country's recent referendum on whether the country's oil-rich south should secede, breaking off from the predominantly Muslim north. Election return estimates showed very strong support for secession; preliminary results are due Feb. 1, with final results on Feb. 14.

The Morgan-Clooney interview was taped Jan. 13. "Clooney malaria update: now have 24,563 offers to nurse him," Morgan said on Twitter. "But his rep says medication's worked and he's OK. Sorry, ladies."

RELATED:

WWII explosives found near George Clooney's Italian villa

George Clooney lobbies for attention to the situation in Sudan

George Clooney has a celebrity credit card, and he's not afraid to use it

-- Christie D'Zurilla

Photo: George Clooney poses with officials during the referendum on the independence of South Sudan at a polling station in Juba, Southern Sudan, on Jan. 9, 2011. Voting began that day and lasted until Jan. 15. Credit: Mohamed Messara / EPA

After a recent visit to Sudan, George Clooney has released a video to raise awareness of the situation in Africa's largest nation in terms of area, in the hopes of heading off a civil war.

"We were late to the Congo. We were late to Rwanda. We were late to Darfur," Clooney says in the video, produced by the Enough Foundation and the actor's Not On Our Watch organization. "We felt like this was a chance to be able to finally stop a war before it starts."

Clooney seeks signatures on a Sudan Now petition that calls for "President Obama to do everything he can to stop a war before it starts."

For his human-rights work, Clooney won the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award at the 2010 Emmy Awards in July. He co-founded Not On Our Watch with actors Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Don Cheadle and Brad Pitt, producer Jerry Weintraub and human-rights lawyer David Pressman, who traveled with Clooney to Sudan in 2006 and is currently the U.S. National Security Council's director for war crimes atrocities and civilian protection.

That Tina Fey simsuit calendar you always wanted is finally here! Sort of.

The "30 Rock" funny lady joined a slew of famous comedians Thursday for Comedy Central's "Night of Too Many Stars," a benefit for autism hosted by Jon Stewart, and was kind enough to offer a rather creative swimsuit 2011 calendar in various bikinis (check out the clip above).

A live telethon at Los Angeles TV station KCET saw attendance from George Clooney (yes, he's that handsome in person), David Spade, Betty White, Olivia Munn, Jeff Garland, Jim Parsons, Will Forte, Adam Scott, Jaime Pressly and Dax Shepard.

Fey, in addition to Chris Rock, Tracy Morgan, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert and Sarah Silverman, appeared in taped segments shot at New York City's Beacon Theater earlier in October.

At the telethon, Clooney chatted with comics and Comedy Central producers, while the likes of Munn, Scott and Shepard munched White Castle burgers and sipped 42 Below vodka concoctions in the green room.

Learn more about the New York Center for Autism here.

-- Matt Donnelly
Twitter.com/MattDonnelly

Photo: Olivia Munn mugs it in the green room at the "Night of Too Many Stars." Credit: Casey Rodgers / Associated Press

Get more on stand-up comedy from the Ministry.

What makes George Clooney get involved in charitable work? It's a simple matter of sharing the wealth.

"If you have a tremendous amount of heat from the spotlight, then you're able to shine a light in a different direction, and it's just deflecting," the Bob Hope Award winner said Sunday at the Emmy Awards. "My dad calls it a celebrity credit card that you try to cash in in other places."

It's not that Clooney knows anything special, for example, when it comes to something like earthquake recovery. "I said I wasn't a Haiti expert. I was a fund-raising expert more than anything."

Seems he's a bit of a basketball expert, however.

"My day today was, John Krasinski came over my house with a bunch of guys and we played basketball, and if you see him later, he's limping.

"And I just want to say, he's lost a step."

-- Amy Kaufman and Christie D'Zurilla

Photo: George Clooney and Elisabetta Canalis are seen backstage after Clooney received the humanitarian award at the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards on  Aug. 29, 2010, in Los Angeles. Credit: Matt Sayles / Associated Press

George Clooney continued the week's "hot 'ER' actors in court" theme -- thank you, John Stamos, for getting that ball rolling -- testifying Friday in a multimillion-dollar fraud trial in Milan, Italy.

Three men are accused of creating the GC Exclusive by George Clooney clothing line and using falsified documents and photographs to mislead suppliers into thinking the line had the actor's backing, Sky News reports.

Clooney, through an interpreter, delivered a sarcastic comment to the defendants about their work on the clothing and on documents and photos that he testified were fake.

''You have done a very good job," he said. "You should be very proud.'' (The judge then asked him to refrain from making comments like that.)

Stamos was able to sign autographs and pose for photos with fans outside the federal court in Michigan, but the scene around Clooney's appearance was predictably much more chaotic, as the actor ...

George Clooney's Italian villa was roped off by authorities after an unexploded World War II-era bomb, hand grenades, and mortar rounds were discovered Wednesday submerged in Lake Como near the actor's property.

(Actually, the entire town of Laglio was roped off, and people whose homes overlook the lake were told to stay inside and away from windows, but we here at the Ministry are focused pretty much only on Casa de Clooney.)

This news according to the Daily Telegraph, which unfortunately repeats the debunked story that Clooney had placed the villa on the market in February.

Divers with Italy's navy were brought in to bring up the things that go boom, the Daily Mail reports, adding that the weapons will be detonated elsewhere, which seems reasonable.

Clooney's comment, per TMZ? "This is not the first bomb I've experienced."

Joking aside, this find is far better than another newsworthy discovery this month in the lake -- on April 3, a passerby spotted the body of a woman who'd apparently been murdered.

-- Christie D'Zurilla

Photo: Elisabetta Canalis and George Clooney arrive at the Academy Awards on March 7, 2010, in Hollywood. Credit: Andrew Gombert / EPA.

Want the headlines? Follow the Ministry of Gossip on Twitter (we're @LATcelebs) or find us on Facebook at facebook.com/ministryofgossip.

If you've ever wondered what it's like to be George Clooney as he walks the red carpet at the Academy Awards, here's a taste: Cameras flashing, gorgeous date dressed in red on your arm, people screaming your name.

The poise. The charm. The smile. And he even seems to be having a good time.

"Yes, I'm excited to be here," he says.

We're excited too.

--Amy Kaufman

Photo: Elizabeth Canalis and George Clooney on the red carpet at the Academy Awards. Credit: Andrew Gombert/ EPA

A new Times database puts readers on the sidewalks of Hollywood, using more than a century of archives to track the lives of the stars, including current Oscar nominees Jeff Bridges, James Cameron, Matt Damon, Morgan Freeman, Sandra Bullock and Meryl Streep.

Want the headlines? Follow the Ministry of Gossip on Twitter (we're @LATcelebs).  And if you want to become a fan on Facebook, find us at facebook.com/ministryofgossip.

Normally we don't repeat stories that are flat-out wrong -- unless, of course, they fulfill some sort of dreamy celebrity fantasy we have, and we think it'd be really cool if they were true.

Which is why we'd like to make it quite clear that George Clooney did NOT buy girlfriend Elisabetta Canalis an island off Italy's Lake Como, no matter what OK! magazine reported.  Not, no, didn't, nuh-uh. We thank Gossip Cop for doing the legwork so that we can run this nice pic of the couple together in the rain on the Golden Globes red carpet.

[Updated at 6:53 p.m.: Clooney stepped up this afternoon to say that he is not selling his house. So read the rest of this post knowing that we find ourselves, as he put it (and as we hinted at), at the "end of another riveting day of false news."]

The Times Online, however, is reporting that George is selling his Lake Como villa, with David and Victoria Beckham supposedly expressing interest. Or maybe they just really enjoyed visiting there last year? And even though folks are repeating an Italian newspaper's report that a Russian vodka magnate is also interested, his spokesman told the Times Online that the boss has never even seen the property, and never sent "agents" to investigate its purchase. Drat! Why did we study Spanish and not Italian?

For even the biggest stars, the Sundance Film Festival can be fraught with stress over film reviews and the quest for distribution deals.

Then again, for the biggest stars there are plenty of VIP distractions. Take Mark Ruffalo and Orlando Bloom, director and star, respectively, of rocker pic "Sympathy for Delicious." 

While press and potential buyers screened the flick, which costars Juliette Lewis and Laura Linney, the guys were treated to Oakley's Learn to Ride snowboarding program.

On the slopes at Marriott's MountainSide, adjacent to Utah's Park City Mountain Resort, the A-listers were outfitted in pants and puffers, goggles and hats from the sunglasses-making sponsor, then sent down the hill with pros like Shaun White. 

"Orlando needed no help. He's really good," an onlooker said of Bloom, who navigated the snow like a champ.

Can "Sympathy" navigate the murky trail of studio favor in the snowy town? Get more details on Ruffalo's directorial debut here.

-- Matt Donnelly

Photo: Mark Ruffalo, left, and Orlando Bloom on slopes at the Marriott's MountainSide. Credit: Chris Polk / WireImage 

Get our full Sundance coverage here! And ride our news slopes on Twitter and Facebook.

There were familiar faces manning the phones -- Reese Witherspoon with her radiant smile and sweet, uplifting wishes as she thanked donors, Jack Nicholson and Steven Spielberg as we rarely see them -- and there were big musical acts performing all over the globe.

It was "Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief," and it blanketed the airwaves (and cable waves, and Internet waves) for two hours Friday night and then again in an immediate replay on some outlets.

Click on the image of Bono and Rihanna to see a photo gallery from the night's performances.

George Clooney, who kicked off the show, also spoke after the telethon ended with CNN's Anderson Cooper, who was reporting from Haiti after chatting with a nurse, and a child who'd been injured and lost both his parents.

Clooney emphasized to Cooper the need for the entertainment industry and media to keep the Haiti recovery story front and center after the initial media blast, citing the continuing needs of the people affected, especially those who will need follow-up surgeries after emergency amputations and the like.