Over the past few weeks, you might have noticed an unusual amount of videos of people chucking buckets of ice cold water over their heads popping up on social media. Nope, risking pneumonia isn’t some unfathomable new trend – the new craze is actually in aid of charity ALS Association and raising awareness of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), a terminal illness which causes muscles to weaken and stiffen.
The challenge started after Pete Frates, a former Boston College basketball player, was forced to stop playing after developing ALS. He challenged his teammates and players from Boston Red Sox to brave the icy waters to help raise money for research into a cure. Since then, it’s rapidly spread over Twitter and eksewhere, using the hashtag #ALSIceBucketChallenge.
The rules of the challenge are as follows: once someone has been challenged by a previous participant, they have 24 hours to record a video of themselves pouring a bucket of ice water over themselves. They can then challenge up to three other people to take on the challenge. If someone fails to accept the challenge within 24 hours they are to donate $100 to the ALS Association. Stars from across the music world have been getting involved with the challenge and we’ve compiled some of the best videos below.
Foo Fighters
Raising money for charity AND paying homage to one of the greatest horror films of all time? Carrie on, David Grohl…
http://instagram.com/p/r0t0qBRZXp/embed/
Drake
The rapper is the latest to take part in the craze that’s sweeping America. Watch him do his bit from a distance (prepare yourself for some serious screams when he takes off his t-shirt afterwards) in this fan-shot footage. He’s since nominated Beyonce to follow in his footsteps.
http://instagram.com/p/r1uvbnJFNv/embed/
Lady Gaga
Gaga’s attempt is the most poised yet. The way she doesn’t even flinch suggest she regularly lands huge silver bowls of freezing cold water of herself.
Eddie Vedder
The Pearl Jam frontman accepted bandmate Mike McCready’s challenge before passing it on to One Direction’s Niall Horan and Bruce Springsteen. “I know he could do with cooling down,” Vedder reasoned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n3Eu6u1zhQ
Taylor Swift
Never knowingly outdone, Taylor Swift kept up her nice girl rep by chucking water over herself (and pal, actress Jaime King) AND donating all the $100 dollar bills she waved at the camera pre-soaking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Uld7IxgXAY
Justin Timberlake
JT gathered a whole group of participants for his challenge, nominating Jimmy Fallon, Steve Higgins and The Roots from The Tonight Show to match him…
The Roots
…And the group rose to the challenge, accepting it in front of a live audience on the latest episode of Fallon’s show.
http://instagram.com/p/r0iRtoLqJ9/embed/
Iggy Azalea
The Aussie rapper shared a video of her shrieking as the icy water hit her on her Instagram, and nominated collaborators Charli XCX and Rita Ora to take part too.
Weird Al Yankovic
“What a perfect day. The only thing that would make this better is if I had a big bucket of ice water dumped on my head,” says the parody hitmaker knowingly in his video. He’s also the most ambitious nominator so far, reaching out to the Pope, Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama.
Gwen Stefani
If you thought Iggy Azalea’s screams were funny, then check out Gwen Stefani shrieking before her The Voice co-star Blake Shelton had even started tipping his buckets contents slowly down her back.
http://instagram.com/p/ryRm_IAvlh/embed/
http://instagram.com/p/rznUCAgvgP/embed/
Justin Bieber
There’s plenty of people who’d probably enjoy throwing a bucket of icy cold water over Bieber so he’s gone ahead and done it for them – twice!