The Top 10 Most Popular Ice Bucket Challenges By Billboard feat Eminem, Rihanna, and more.
Since the ALS Ice Bucket Challenges started in July, too many celebrities to count have participated. In all, the viral sensation helped raise more than $100 million to help fight amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Over the roughly month-long span where the Ice Bucket Challenge swept the Internet, stars participated in not only raising awareness for the noble cause but getting an added oomph of attention out of it, boosting their social numbers with sometimes pretty out-there attempts of putting a new spin on dumping a nearly frozen tub of water over their heads. As such, there were winners and losers in it all. While some notables like Icona Pop (who got a relatively modest 10,223 Facebook likes on their video), G-Unit (27,337 YouTube views) and Linkin Park (29,560 Instagram likes) might have been better off just donating the money, a number of musicians saw some massive returns on their videos.
Having sifted through Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, weighing figures across platforms, here are music’s top 10 most popular ASL Ice Bucket Challenges:
10. Carrie Underwood
Along with husband and newly announced baby daddy, NHL center Mike Fisher, Carrie Underwood has racked up more than 1.5 million views on YouTube. Going all the way, the American Idol had a forklift do the ice-cold water dumping.
9. Dr.Dre
Hip-hop’s “first billionaire” and Apple staffer Dr. Dre was sure to plug his Beats by Dre brand while participating in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, posting the video to the Beats YouTube channel and raking in more than 2.6 million views.
Dr. Dre’s new boss, Apple CEO Tim Cook, had challenged him to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, and he was definitely not going to back down. He’s had a custom-built water-dropping gadget and doesn’t even remove his watch when the water drops. And just before the big event, Dr. Dre decided who would be the next person to take on the challenge. Dre says, “I nominate Eminem, Snoop Dogg, and Kendrick Lamar.”
8. Jimmy Fallon & The Roots
After getting nominated by Justin Timberlake, The Tonight Show’s Jimmy Fallon and The Roots went for it all in unison, joined by Steve Higgins, guest Rob Riggle and Horatio Sanz. The video so far has gotten more than 3.7 million views on YouTube.
7. Lady Gaga
Though her Instagram post has earned just 260,000 likes, Lady Gaga’s silently poised ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has been viewed more than 5 million times via YouTube repostings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvlwTP_RDCo
6. Justin Timberlake
Justin Timberlake was one of the first stars to participate in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, so he deserves extra points for being an early adopter. Otherwise, he enjoyed attention across platforms with his video that includes the Tennessee Kids, receiving nearly 245,000 likes on Instagram, 33,642 likes on Facebook, and more than 3 million views across a number of YouTube channels.
5. Selena Gomez
After getting nominations from Taylor Swift and Ryan Seacrest, Selena Gomez announced her whole team was donating for the cause and went along with getting doused with ice water too. She thanks her sponsors with a sarcastic smile but the 730,000 Instagram likes her clip got is nothing to scoff at.
4. Foo Fighters
In perhaps music’s most creative ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, Dave Grohl and his Foo Fighter compatriots set about recreating an iconic scene from the classic horror flick Carrie. The parody is spot on and earned the band almost 4.6 million views on its YouTube page.
3. Eminem & Rihanna
Tour mates Eminem and Rihanna teamed up for their ALS Ice Bucket Challenges, filming the clip onstage. Raking in more than 1.1 million Facebook likes, 37,000 comments, and nearly 250,000 shares, the superstars made an impact with this one. Eminem was challenged by Dr.Dre and Eminem challenged Rick Rubin.
Eminem chose to respond to Dr. Dre’s ALS Ice Bucket Challenge at the duo’s Saturday night gig at Comerica Park in his hometown of Detroit, the tour’s sixth and final date. Denaun “Mr.” Porter, Eminem’s hype man, stopped the MC and Rihanna as they walked off the stage at the end of the event and reminded his boss of Dre’s challenge, which Eminem had earlier accepted via Twitter. Rihanna then drenched him with ice-cold water while he sat in a chair on stage.
Eminem soon issued his own challenges as he shook himself off, first to Porter, who Eminem did the honors himself, and then to Rihanna, who asked the sold-out crowd of roughly 45,000, “Detroit, what you think? Should I do it? I’m from the islands; I don’t do this ice shit! This ice shit doesn’t work for me.” Despite this, Rihanna took the leap while Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby” was played in the backdrop by Eminem’s band. Eminem recently challenged Rick Rubin, the creator of “Berzerk,” to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.
2. Taylor Swift
Along with actress Jaime King, Taylor Swift made a splash with her ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Aside from donating $100 for each person in the video, she pulled in some impressive views with it: 300,000 Facebook likes, more than 1 million likes on two Instagram videos posted from it, and more than 1.5 million views on different YouTube channels.
1. Justin Bieber
In not just one but two ALS Ice Bucket Challenge videos, Justin Bieber reigns supreme pulling in more than 1 million Instagram likes for each. But, sorry Justin, President Obama won’t be accepting your challenge.
