Digital Top Stories

‘Dead’ stars make it back online after $500,000 bail out

By | Published on Wednesday 8 December 2010

Stars including Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Ryan Seacrest, Kim Kardashian and Usher are using their social network profiles again after staging ‘digital deaths’ last week in aid of Alicia Keys’ AIDS charity Keep a Child Alive.

As previously reported, a number of high profile celebrities swore off Twitter and Facebook on World AIDS Day (1 Dec), refusing to return until fans had donated $1 million to the charity.

With well over 25 million Twitter followers between them, it was thought by many that the celebs wouldn’t be offline for very long, but the self-imposed exodus lasted until this Monday (6 Dec), and only came to an end when pharmaceutical entrepreneur Stewart Rahr donated the last $500,000. In the end only 3600 fans actually contributed anything, which possibly tells us something about just how much people really value the celebrities they follow on Twitter.

But Keys and her team seemed happy. She said in a statement: “From the bottom of my heart, thank you to all of the fans, friends and artists who joined this cause. I’m incredibly inspired by all of the donations that have been made to help us achieve our goal and so humbled by the outpour of support from everyone”.

Leigh Blake, who co-founded Keep A Child Alive with Keys, added: “Although we never expected to raise $1 million overnight, we are completely blown away that we were able to achieve our goal in less than a week. We are moved by the many generous donations and by the amount of support we’ve received from the public. Over 3600 people have joined the fight and sacrificed their own digital lives for this important cause and we intend to continue this movement”.

More information can be found on the campaign at buylife.org



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