HIP-HOP

Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Eminem & Rihanna: The Top 10 Most Popular Ice Bucket Challenges

9/9/2014

Also: Dave Grohl, Selena Gomez, Dr. Dre, Carrie Underwood, Jimmy Fallon & The Roots, Miley Cyrus and Justin Timberlake

Since the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge 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:

  1. 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. 

  2. 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. 

  3. 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. 

  5. 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. 

  6. 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. 

  7. 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. 

  9. 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. 

  10. 3

    Eminem & Rihanna

     
    Post by Eminem.

     

    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. 

  11. 2

    Taylor Swift

     
    Post by 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. 

  13. 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. 

THE BILLBOARD BIZ
SUBSCRIBER EXPERIENCE

The Biz premium subscriber content has moved to Billboard.com/business.


To simplify subscriber access, we have temporarily disabled the password requirement.