Walters, on her annual list of influential people, named the new Mrs Clooney – a well respected and highly-regarded human rights barrister – as the Most Fascinating Person of 2014, beating out actor Scarlett Johansson and singer Taylor Swift.

It's not Mrs Clooney's impressive case list or the fact she speaks three languages and is one of the UN's favourite lawyers that make her interesting, but her spouse and clothes, Walters said as she introduced her top pick.

"What does it take to fascinate one of the most fascinating men in the world? She is known primarily through her spouse and while we know little about her we know a great deal about him and he has fascinated many women. Especially me," she said.

"Amal Alamuddin, now known as Amal Clooney, is suddenly in that stratosphere that we reserve for the Jackie Os and the Princess Dis and Kate Middletons. That is everything she does, says or wears is officially fascinating."

Perhaps Walters is so shocked as it was her who Clooney told in 1995, after his failed four-year marriage to actor Talia Balsam, that he would never marry again.

"I won't marry again. I'm not a kid, I'm 34. No, I'm never going to get married again because I wasn't very good at it," he said at the time.

Clooney, an actor who sells coffee machines in his spare time, married his 36-year-old Oxford-educated bride in September. They met at a charity function in Italy where Alamuddin refused to take his number. The 53-year-old reportedly then sent her an email suggesting "the hottest man in the world should meet with the hottest human rights lawyer in the world".

She replied a few days later.