Billionaire Brings Back Stars to Twitter with Generous Donation

The Digital Life Sacrifice campaign initiated by Alicia Keys’ Keep a Child Alive foundation and meant to see A-listers off social networks until they raised $1 million has finally come to an end: after a billionaire donated half that amount.

As we also reported on previous occasions, many celebrities have pledged to stay off Twitter, Facebook and other social networks for a cause – but they hoped this wouldn’t take more than a day.

Among them were Lady Gaga, Alicia Keys, Kim Kardashian, Ryan Seacrest, Usher and Justin Timberlake, to name only the more famous. Five and a half days into the campaign, and they were still very far away from their proposed target.

As Contact Music reports, the stars and their fans managed to raise only half the amount. While skeptics speculated the stars may be off Twitter for a very long while, a billionaire has stepped in and saved the day.

“The celebrities, which also included Kim Kardashian and US TV personality Ryan Seacrest, logged off their computers last week (01Dec10) to mark World AIDS Day, and refused to return to tweeting and updating their Facebook pages until the target of $1 million (£666,700) was reached,” Contact Music says.

“And now they can sign back on – the stars and fans raised $500,000 (£333,330), while billionaire and philanthropist Stewart Rahr matched the pledges, donating the other $500,000 (£333,330) to reach the goal,” the same report notes.

Contact Music also mentions that Usher was the first to break the news on his Twitter page, saying how happy he was he was “alive” again and using the opportunity to remind his fans and followers to “never stop buying life.”

However, at a closer look at his timeline on Twitter, it turns out that he wasn’t really that truthful to the cause, since he was supposed to go on complete Twitter silence until the $1 million was raised.

Over the weekend, Usher tweeted four times, thus sparking rumors about he was the first celebrity attached to the cause to openly admit it had failed.