The tangled web of celebrity GoFundMes

Shameless

Shameless Media

Society & Culture

4.7 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 1 March 2026

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

MONDAY ANALYSIS: After the tragic deaths of actors Eric Dane and James Van Der Beek, GoFundMe pages were established to ‘support the families,’ and the donations started rolling in. It begs the question: is it okay for celebrities – or families of celebrities – to ask for charity? Is this a case of asking the poor to donate to the rich? And…have we entered an era where being famous no longer equals being rich? This episode of Shameless is brought to you by Squarespace – To get started, head to squarespace.com/SHAMELESS10 for a free trial, then use the code SHAMELESS10 to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Also, shout-out to Pandora! If you use the code SHAMELESS15, you’ll get $15 off your purchase when you spend $100 or more. Available online only for a limited time. T&Cs apply. They’re huge stars – but when they die, fans are being asked to pay the bills by Bronte Gossling The “Elite” Myth and the GoFundMe Outrage by Alyssa Milano Your hosts are Zara McDonald (@zamcdonald) and Michelle Andrews (@michelleandrews1). Shameless Podcast is produced by Annabelle Lee and Eilish Gilligan, executive-produced by Lucy Hunt and audio-edited by Eilish Gilligan. Our social media team consists of Naima Fatema, Emily Li and Eilish Gilligan, and our partnerships manager is Cindy Luu. Want to support our show? Clicking ‘follow’ on Apple and Spotify is the best way to do that, and we're super grateful to anyone who leaves a five-star review while they're at it. Also! An old-fashioned 'Tell a Friend In Real Life' is equally appreciated. Want more? We've got more… Subscribe to our newsletter Smart, Dumb Stuff: https://tinyurl.com/4yasjphn Follow us on Instagram: https://tinyurl.com/2mf557ux Aaaand we’re on TikTok: https://tinyurl.com/2hchchrp Everything else your heart could ever desire is here: https://linktr.ee/shamelesspodcast Thanks for listening! We’re huge fans of yours. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Shameless Media
0:05.0	Shameless, the pop culture podcast with smart people who love dumb stuff.
0:37.4	You are joined, as always, by Melbourne writers, Michelle Andrews and Zara McDonald. Hello, Zazzie McDonald and hello, producer, Elish Gilligan. Hi. Happy Monday. Happy Monday, guys. New week, new energy, new vibe. Are we shedding the energy of last week? I think it's always good to do that.
0:54.7	Start a new week afresh.
0:56.4	Sometimes I like rolling.
0:58.2	Rolling with the, I felt like last week was good vibes.
1:00.5	Well then if you would like to roll with the momentum of last week, that is your prerogative too.
1:04.9	Today on the show, what we wanted to talk about is in light of the very tragic deaths of Eric Dane and James Vanderbeek, both actors,
1:12.7	a very interesting discourse has appeared online after both of their deaths, GoFundMe pages
1:18.6	were established and donations started rolling in. And in both cases, the pages were set up to
1:23.1	support the families. Yeah. It begs the question, is it okay for celebrities or the families of
1:28.3	celebrities to ask for money in the wake of their death? Is this the case of asking poorer people
1:35.0	to donate to richer people? Yeah. I also want to have a conversation because I think one thing I've
1:39.1	been thinking a lot about in the last week is, does fame equal money or does fame equal power? Like if you are famous,
1:46.9	are you automatically rich? Because I think there'll be some interesting things to discuss there.
1:50.4	Before we get into all of it, a big thank you to Squarespace, today's sponsor, the All In One
1:54.6	platform that helps you build a beautiful website and truly launch your passion project or business.
1:59.8	Thank you, Squarespace. Thank you, Squarespace for making it all possible. So many moving parts of this story.
2:04.6	Yeah. So let's begin with James Vanderbeek. He is the star of Dawson's Creek. He was diagnosed
2:10.8	with colorectal cancer in 2023. He died from that cancer on Feb 11 this year. He was only 48 years old. So young. And he survived by
2:20.7	his wife, Kimberly, and their six children. Now, the same day that he died, a GoFundMe was set up by
2:25.9	friends of the family. According to the description, this GoFundMe aimed to raise funds too,
	...

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