Why do celebrities flip awards present speeches into political rants?
As a result of they’ll, for starters.
Additionally they know there’s no journalist inside shouting distance to fact-check their claims. Nor will reporters press them on their lecture’s particulars.
The same safety comes through movie star aid efforts. Stars share their expertise and time for numerous causes, usually with the most effective of intentions. What if these intentions aren’t sufficient?
Enter FireAid.
The Jan. 30 occasion drew a who’s who of music to assist Californians battered by this 12 months’s raging wildfires. Suppose Inexperienced Day, Pink, Stephen Stills, the Black Crowes, Woman Gaga, Sting, No Doubt, the Pink Scorching Chili Peppers and plenty of extra acts.
They raised roughly $100 million, and a brand new report from the Washington Free Beacon raises big questions about the place that money has gone.
A few of the cash helped teams that embrace DEI-style practices that exclude white folks, in accordance with the report. Others help unlawful immigration and far-Left causes like Black Lives Matter.
What about rebuilding properties misplaced within the fireplace? How a lot cash went to households whose lives have been severely impacted by the pure catastrophe?
“All the cash raised will go on to individuals who want it now,” stated actor Miles Teller throughout the live performance.
(Except they’re white, maybe?)
The Washington Free Beacon desires to know what occurred to the money. Selection? The Hollywood Reporter? Deadline.com?
Judging by their protection, or lack thereof, not a lot. Plus, a lot of the teams receiving the folks’s money clammed up when pressed for remark.
What occurs subsequent? Nothing, almost certainly.
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The Washington Free Beacon report got here and went earlier this month. A superb religion Google Information search on the subject discovered a month-old story permitting FireAid to defend its actions. There’s nothing up to now week relating to the brand new, alarming allegations.
Some FireAid donors could also be glad to see their cash fund progressive causes which have little, to no, ties to the subject in play. Others can be livid to see the place their hard-earned money has gone.
All of us have a proper to know.
Legacy Media leisure websites, which have entry to many A-list artists, may press them on the matter. Have they adopted up on the place all the cash went? Are they proud of funds being steered to alternate causes that don’t have anything to do with the wildfires?
Likelihood is, the musicians in query wouldn’t reply. That, in itself, is a narrative. And if extra retailers stored the strain on, the artists is perhaps pressured to make use of their clout and make actual change above and past singing a couple of songs.
Or, on the very least, clarify to their followers why their cash went to teams defending unlawful immigration and race-based initiatives over fire-related issues.
This isn’t a brand new drawback, in fact.
Maybe essentially the most well-known instance of movie star fundraising gone awry got here with 1985’s “Stay Help” live performance. That affair raised greater than $125 million for famine aid, however a collection of investigative tales by Spin Journal raised alarming questions as to the place the cash went.
The occasion, and the earlier single, “Do They Know It’s Christmas,” raised international consciousness of the African famine, little question. Different, thornier questions ultimately outmoded that matter.
Spin hounded Bob Geldof, the Stay Help mastermind, for remark on the time. Will any of the artists who rocked FireAid face a single query about the place the occasion’s cash has gone? What concerning the actors who appeared on stage and begged for viewers’ cash?
Don’t guess on it.