George Clooney has been an A-list celebrity for nearly 20 years now. He has also had a relationship with Harvey Weinstein for nearly just as long. This week, Clooney dropped a bombshell admitting that he had heard rumors

“He gave me my first big break as an actor in films on ‘From Dusk till Dawn,’ he gave me my first big break as a director with “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.’ We’ve had dinners, we’ve been on location together, we’ve had arguments. But I can tell you that I’ve never seen any of this behavior—ever,” Clooney told The Daily Beast in an exclusive interview.

Last week The New York Times released a bombshell report that claimed Harvey Weinstein had been sexually harassing actresses and employees for almost 30 years. Clooney claimed he heard about the rumors but never pursued them.

“I’ve heard rumors, and the rumors, in general, started back in the nineties, and they were that certain actresses had slept with Harvey to get a role,” Clooney explained. “It seemed like a way to smear the actresses and demean them by saying that they didn’t get the jobs based on their talent, so I took those rumors with a grain of salt.”

“But the other part of this, the part we’re hearing now about eight women being paid off, I didn’t hear anything about that and I don’t know anyone that did,” Clooney added. “That’s a whole other level and there’s no way you can reconcile that. There’s nothing to say except that it’s indefensible.”

The 56-year-old Clooney went on to say that there were warning signs but claimed he never thought Weinstein would stoop so low as to pay off women to keep quiet.

“A lot of people are doing the ‘you had to know’ thing right now, and yes, if you’re asking if I knew that someone who was very powerful had a tendency to hit on young, beautiful women, sure,” Clooney continued. “But I had no idea that it had gone to the level of having to pay off eight women for their silence, and that these women were threatened and victimized. I’ve been talking with a lot of people about this and I don’t know many people who knew of that.”

If George Clooney had ideas that Weinstein was up to no good, imagine how many other people in Hollywood had suspicions or even flat out knew Harvey was a sexual predator. Only time will tell where this leads and who else is exposed. One thing is for sure, Hollywood is not what it once was.