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Madonna (DepositPhotos)
Deadline Detroit doesn't have a celebrity news beat, but every so often celebrities make news here. Today? Two items! One click! We'll even boldface the names for you, for easy skimming.
First up, in the category of Used to be Here, is Madonna, who pledged up to $100,000 in a matching-grant challenge for Detroit Prep, a charter school she's been supporting for a while. The school, located now in the basement of a church in Indian Village, seeks to move to an empty public school on the east side, but needs money for renovation. The money will come through her Ray of Light Foundation, which supports other worthy causes in the city.
Brian McCollum writes:
Detroit Prep, founded in 2016, is a sister school of Detroit Achievement Academy (DAA), one of the organizations Madonna visited and chose to financially support during a philanthropic tour of the city in summer 2014. At the time, Madonna funded art supplies for the charter school, while also contributing to the Empowerment Plan and Downtown Youth Boxing Gym.
She has continued to back DAA, including funding for that school's permanent site on West Outer Drive. She also gave teachers 50 front-row tickets to her Joe Louis Arena show in 2015.
Detroit Prep serves students from kindergarten to third grade, with plans to expand to eighth grade. Like DAA, the school follows the Expeditionary Learning model, which emphasizes principles such as self-discovery, collaboration and diversity.
Eminem (Twitter photo)
And in the Still Here category we have Eminem, who is buying out two screenings of "Bodied," a rap battle film he produced, at the AMC 30 in Sterling Heights. He's giving the tickets to fans on a first-come basis. If any are left, find instructions to claim them on Eminem's Twitter.
Adam Graham has that story:
"Bodied," directed by music video whiz Joseph Kahn (he directed several of Eminem's videos, including "Without Me" and "Love the Way You Lie"), tells the story of a graduate student who is studying the world of competitive rap battles and winds up immersed in it. It stars Calum Worthy (of the Disney Channel's "Austin & Ally") and opens at the AMC Forum 30 on Friday.
Eminem came on board in the project late in the process, Kahn told the Detroit News in an interview this week.
"I always had it in the back of my mind that he was going to come on board at some point," said Kahn, 46. "But you don't want to go to Em and ask for money or an endorsement on something on big as battle rap, because everybody asks him for things. So I made the movie, showed it to him, and he loved it. Then he decided to come on board, and he helped us put the deal together."
