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George Clooney arrives at the AFI Awards in Los Angeles....

George Clooney arrives at the AFI Awards in Los Angeles. (Jan. 13, 2012) Credit: AP

In an interview posted Wednesday, George Clooney good-naturedly shrugged off persistent rumors that he is secretly gay.

"I think it's funny," he told The Advocate, "but the last thing you'll ever see me do is jump up and down, saying, 'These are lies!' That would be unfair and unkind to my good friends in the gay community. I'm not going to let anyone make it seem like being gay is a bad thing. My private life is private, and I'm very happy in it. Who does it hurt if someone thinks I'm gay?"

Clooney, 50, is currently dating model-actress Stacy Keibler, a former Baltimore Ravens cheerleader, WWE wrestler and "Dancing With the Stars" contestant.

He told the gay and lesbian news magazine that his first exposure to gay people came when "I was about 13 or 14" and his father, Nick Clooney, was doing dinner theater in Ohio and introduced him to the cast.

"It was the first time I understood that there was this whole other culture and society, and I found it very interesting," Clooney said. "I'm so lucky to have been raised the way I have, because my parents believed that everyone had the right to their own feelings, opinions and existence; as long as they weren't harming others, you had to defend those rights. Although the Catholic Church didn't teach us those things, that's how I was raised."

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