Celebrities kick off fire relief efforts, Jamie Lee Curtis pledges $1.6m

Actor Jamie Lee Curtis has pledged to donate $US1 million ($1.6m) to fire relief efforts, while other celebrities are assessing the damage to their own homes and neighbourhoods after the most destructive fires in Los Angeles’ history.

The Oscar-winning actor and Red Cross disaster preparedness ambassador said she would use funds from her family foundation and was in touch with officials including California Governor Gavin Newsom to determine where the funds would be best used.

Jamie Lee Curtis and her family are donating $1m to the relief effort.Credit: AP

“It’s gnarly, you guys, it’s just a catastrophe in southern California,” Curtis said on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

“This is literally where I live. Everything – the market I shop in, the schools my kids go to, friends, many, many, many, many, many friends, now have lost their homes.”

The star, known for her roles in Halloween and Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, as well as an Emmy-winning performance on The Bear, also criticised insurance companies on social media for failing to cover some homes in LA.

Other stars, some of whose homes have been destroyed, are using their social media accounts to direct people to sources of support, urge more help and provide advice on how people can help.

Jennifer Aniston urged people to temporarily foster dogs that have been displaced by the fires.

Sharon Stone, her sister and a publicist friend are working with a shop on Beverly Boulevard, The Coop, to operate it as a distribution centre.

Stone appeared on NewsNation to urge people to donate clothes, bedding and other items, and to tell anyone who needs clothing and other goods to head to the shop. Stone said she was also taking friends into her home.

Jenna Ortega provided details of evacuation shelters and noted climate change was increasing fire intensity in California, with statistics from a Californian government report.

Australian drummer-singer G-Flip took shelter in their studio with their wife Chrishell Stause and dog.

“Myself, Chrishell and Gracie had to evacuate our house in a hurry, but we are safe at my studio,” G-Flip wrote on Instagram. “Be safe LA friends.”

Benjamin Rigby, an Australian actor who has appeared in Alien: Covenant and Ford v Ferrari also lost his house. “My heart is absolutely and completely broken. Our home is gone,” he wrote on Instagram over an image of burnt rubble.

Fellow Australian actor Rebel Wilson, who announced in late December that she and her wife Ramona Agruma had a second wedding in Sydney, posted on social media that she could not believe what was happening. She thanked a friend for saving her cat at their Hollywood Hills residence.

This is Us actor Milo Ventimiglia told CBS News he and his wife, Jarah Mariano, who is nine months’ pregnant, evacuated their home, then watched the Palisades fire take over through security cameras. In the second season of the series, Ventimiglia’s character rescued his family from a house fire but died later from a heart attack after breathing in too much smoke. He told CBS: “It’s not lost on me, life imitating art.”

Actor Mandy Moore said everyone she knows had lost everything in the fires, and every house on her street was gone.

Moore said the main part of her home in Altadena was still standing, but unlivable after the Eaton blaze.

Moore is married to folk rock singer-songwriter Taylor Goldsmith, who performs in Dawes with his drummer brother Griffin.

In a post on Instagram, Moore said the brothers’ studio had been destroyed.

“Every house on our street is gone. My in-laws. My brother and sister-in-law – six weeks from welcoming their first baby. Our best friends. Feeling weird survivor’s guilt. We love this community and will do everything we can to help rebuild and support.”

Several major Hollywood celebrities have lost homes in the fires.

Eugene Levy at last year’s Emmys.Credit: AP

The four-bedroom Malibu home Jeff Bridges shares with his family was destroyed by the Pacific Palisades fire, a representative for Bridges confirmed to TMZ.

Dirty Dancing star Jennifer Grey, who most recently appeared in the Jesse Eisenberg film A Real Pain, lost her home, her daughter Stella Gregg shared on Instagram.

The Pacific Palisades blaze also claimed the $US9 million home comedian and actor Billy Crystal had lived in with his wife for 46 years and the $US7.5 million home of Miles Teller, star of Top Gun: Maverick and Whiplash.

Schitt’s Creek co-creator and star Eugene Levy, the honorary mayor of Pacific Palisades, lost his home in the same fire.

Paris Hilton at the 2024 Grammy Awards.Credit: Getty Images

Other celebrities to have lost homes included reality TV star Paris Hilton, actor James Woods, TV host and actress Ricki Lake, and actors Adam Brody and Leighton Meester who lost their $US6.5 million home in the Palisades fire.

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