To mark World AIDS Day 2005, Grammy-winning singer Alicia Keys recorded a cover of Kate Bush’s “Don’t Give Up” with Bono. Later that year, she played the Philadelphia leg of the Live 8 concerts. But her work for HIV/AIDS goes beyond performing; Keys also founded the charity Keep a Child Alive, which funds anti-retroviral therapy for AIDS victims and supports orphanages for children with the disease. Through KCA, Keys has enlisted a pack of other celebrities to model its “Buy Life” t-shirts, including Ryan Seacrest, Katie Holmes, and Willow and Jaden Smith. Keys told ABC News she invests in her trips to Africa "to be the voice of the people… to represent real people and real life, real struggles, real pains, real joys.” This year, Keys has recruited many of the most active celebrities on Twitter (from Justin Timberlake to Kim Kardashian to Justin Bieber) and Facebook to die a digital death on World AIDS Day until Keep a Child Alive receives $1 million in donations. In one of her final tweets Tuesday night, Keys wrote, “We r digitally dying so real people who r actually dying don't have 2!”
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U2’s lead singer has long used his celebrity for good as the co-founder of (RED), a business initiative created to engage the private sector in the fight against HIV/AIDS. But he didn’t stop at one organization—Bono also founded the advocacy organization ONE, which fights extreme poverty and preventable disease, mainly in Africa. “We're not here today for a victory lap,” Bono told a group of U.S. senators when he launched ONE in 2004. “We're here to pick up the pace. Because AIDS is outrunning us.” Six years later, in an effort to further heighten awareness this World AIDS Day Bono helped turn the Sydney Opera House and Harbor Bridge red to kick off (RED)’s campaign to light up 80 international monuments, continuing the fight against the global epidemic. “This idea of the HIV-free generation by 2015—that no child will be born with the disease by 2015,” he told local Australian radio, “that’s really possible if we push.”
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Scarlett Johansson gets her hands dirty more often than most Hollywood stars, whether it’s visiting AIDS clinics in Rwanda, helping victims of Hurricane Katrina, or traveling all the way to Sri Lanka to promote projects for Oxfam. In 2008, the then-single actress said she takes two HIV tests a year. “One has to be socially aware,” she told the Daily Mail.To increase her awareness, that same year, Johansson traveled to Rwanda in support of (RED), an organization dedicated to eliminating AIDS in Africa. "It was important for me to come here and see the issues we're up against firsthand," she said in a statement. "I came here with an open mind, wanting to listen, understand and learn; I leave with the overwhelming understanding that the small action of making a (RED) choice in your purchases… has an enormous impact on the lives of people in countries like Rwanda."
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Back in 1995—a decade before Bono and other high-profile celebrities came to the cause—Sharon Stone became the research fundraiser for amfAR, the American Foundation for AIDS Research. She traveled the United States hosting multimillion-dollar fundraisers and auctions to fill the amfAR’s research coffers, and has said she plans to remain in the position until there’s a cure for HIV/AIDS. Stone said she speaks to hostile audiences because she’s seen them change their minds. She explained, “Sometimes they don’t [stand up to AIDS] in the beginning and in the end they’re great warriors,” citing former President Clinton as an example.
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Though Janet Jackson’s 1997 dance track “Together Again” was a pop hit, the song stemmed from a melancholy experience. “I wanted to write about friends who have died of AIDS, but without being mournful or sad,” she explained. Jackson decided to donate a portion of the proceeds from “Together Again” to amfAR and more than a decade later, she’s continued to pay tribute to her friends by giving to the organization. The pop star chaired an amfAR fundraiser during Milan Fashion Week in 2009 and told the audience, “This battle needs all of us to be brave warriors,” according to the Agence France-Presse. Jackson urged those in the room to “keep fighting this battle… so that we can realize our dreams of a world without AIDS.”
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Sir Elton John’s AIDS Foundation has raised over $150 million for HIV/AIDS prevention and service programs since its founding in 1992. The organization has leveraged another $315 million for physical and mental health services, HIV testing and counseling, and community outreach programs. The pop star credits his inspiration to Ryan White, the Indiana teenager who died of AIDS in 1990 after receiving an infected blood transfusion. For this World AIDS Day, John will act as the guest editor of The Independent for a special issue dedicated to the cause. “I’m pleased to get the chance to put the subject of AIDS at the top of the editorial agenda,” he told the paper Tuesday.
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Megastar Lady Gaga teamed up with 1980s icon Cyndi Lauper to head the MAC AIDS Fund campaign “From Our Lips” earlier in 2010. The two released eponymous lipsticks with Viva Glam, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the foundation. “This is more than just makeup,” she explained. “Anything I can do to help raise money for HIV/AIDS awareness—that’s what I’m here for, and I’m very honored to be a part of this.” Gaga is also one of several celebrities going silent on social media Wednesday for the Keep a Child Alive Foundation. “When people find out I'm doing this, they say, 'Is it because of your relationship with the gay community, because you want to speak out about AIDS?' And I say no," Gaga explained to USA Today of her involvement with the cause. "AIDS is not a gay disease. That's part of what I want to accomplish ... really raise awareness of what AIDS is today."
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Singer Annie Lennox raised eyebrows when she appeared on the “Idol Gives Back” episode of American Idol wearing a T-shirt with the words “HIV Positive” emblazoned on the front. “I can tell you the good news is actually I am not,” Lennox explained via YouTube. “However, many people are. In fact, 22 million in sub-Saharan Africa are currently HIV positive and I am wearing this in solidarity with them because it's very hard when you are HIV positive to be open about your status and to be able to tell your family and your friends." The Eurythmics singer has been deeply involved in the fight against AIDS and in 2007, she founded the SING campaign, which has raised over $1.5 million to educate and treat women and children in South Africa. Lennox also sang with the African Children’s Choir and will donate the proceeds from her new single “Universal Child” off her holiday album, A Christmas Cornucopia, to victims of the disease.
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Spanish star Penelope Cruz played a pregnant nun suffering from AIDS in Pedro Almodóvar’s 1999 film, All About My Mother, but publically fighting the disease later became an important part of the actress’ life. In 2006, Cruz took part in Gap’s collaboration with the (RED) campaign. She went on to fight for the cause and on World AIDS Day 2008, Cruz opened New York’s Unbreakable Kiss Mistletoe, which raised money for the Elton John AIDS Foundation for every couple that kissed under it. Cruz also covered and guest-edited the June issue of French Vogue to to help spread the word about the (RED) campaign alongside Bono, whom she also worked with on the AIDS crisis HBO documentary The Lazarus Effect. The actress clearly does not take fighting the epidemic lightly. “She was very intense and precise about what she wanted,” a French Vogue staffer told Women’s Wear Daily of Cruz’s short stint at the magazine.
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Romantic comedy star Richard Gere has been an AIDS activist for nearly two decades. He hosted the 1992 World AIDS Day event at the United Nations and is a longtime sponsor of amfAR. Gere is also a sponsor of the Naz Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in New Delhi that established the first residential facility in India for women and orphaned children suffering from the disease. “At the time I got involved with AIDS in India, the disease had so much stigma attached to it that I don’t think anyone knew how to approach it,” Gere told amfAR. "It seemed obvious that if we mobilized the communities that had influence, we’d be able to make a difference.” In 2004, his Gere Foundation established the Heroes Project to help further reduce that stigma, but it’s a war he continues to wage. “We have to work harder to reach those at higher risk and we have to target our education efforts to reach those who are most directly threatened by HIV,” Gere said.
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As the YouthAIDS Global Ambassador, Ashley Judd travels to schools, hospices, medical centers, and even brothels around the world, bringing media attention to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. She took on the role in 2002, and has also been a board member of PSI, the nonprofit health organization of which YouthAIDS is a part, since 2004. “In terms of getting involved with the struggle against HIV/AIDS, that was totally a natural fit,” Judd, a former student activist who once thought of going into the Peace Corps instead of heading to Hollywood, told Marie Claire. “What it is about orphans and vulnerable children that touches me in a way I can’t describe," she told the WebMD magazine. My circumstances weren’t remotely comparable to what these kids go through, but I identify powerfully with the neglect and the abandonment and the vulnerability because I was a vulnerable child, too."
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Dame Elizabeth Taylor became one of the earliest Hollywood activists fighting against AIDS and after her friend and co-star Rock Hudson died of the disease, she decided she could not sit back any longer. Taylor joined with a group of physicians and scientists to form amfAR in 1985. "I could no longer take a passive role as I watched several people I knew and loved die a painful, slow and lonely death," Taylor said in an interview about her activism. "Even if we make the smallest gesture, at least we are making an impact.” The celebrated actress went on to found an organization that bore her own name and it’s one of the few celebrity AIDS charities to focus primarily on victims in the United States. Taylor has dedicated the past 25 years of her life to battling the epidemic, testifying on Capitol Hill, paying visits to victims in hospitals, and lobbying politicians for funds to find a cure. “I hope with all of my heart that in some way I have made a difference in the lives of people with AIDS," Taylor once said. “I want that to be my legacy. Better that than for the mole on my cheek.”
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