Time now for occasional Lost in Showbiz feature Care-o-nomics, wherein we run the rule over celebrity attempts to give a toss about the less fortunate and ask: do you have any idea how lame that looks?
Today's case study is Mr Justin Timberlake, who, like many entertainers, is unwilling to make discreet cheques over to established charities, preferring instead to run everything through his Justin Timberlake Foundation. Suggested motto: "Cry my accountant a river".
And so to these accounts. According to an article in Forbes, recently released tax records show that the Justin Timberlake Foundation spent $146,000 (£95,000) on operating costs in 2006.
"This included $10,000 on travel, and $40,000 on loosely defined 'other services'," the magazine remarks tartly. But I'll bet it lavished a hundred times that on distressed chimps and the like, right? Apparently not. It distributed just $32,000, says Forbes, "with $30,000 of that going to the Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife research and Conservation."
No one at the foundation returned calls for comment despite multiple attempts.
Don't you dare picture the Justin Timberlake Foundation as a single phone ringing out somewhere in Justin's poolhouse. The minute I have the geographical coordinates of its imposing HQ, so will you.
