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Hunky models dump ice bucket on Donatella

The Local Italy
The Local Italy - [email protected]
Hunky models dump ice bucket on Donatella
Screengrab: YouTube

When fashion queen Donatello Versace embraced the Ice Bucket Challenge, she probably didn't expect the male models tasked with dousing her to actually have minds of their own.

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Dressed in a white crop-top and trousers and flanked by two male topless models wielding ice buckets, the fashion queen is the latest Italian celebrity to take part in the social media craze, aimed at raising awareness for the motor neuron disease ALS.

Nominated by Peruvian fashion photographer Mario Testino, the fashion queen calls upon pop stars Pharrell Williams and Prince as well as Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar to follow her lead and be the next ones to take up the challenge.

“I’m not just here to ruin my make-up. Please donate to ASL,” she says, instead of ALS, which is the correct acronym in English.

Despite her protestations in Italian of “no, stop!” the star is then drenched from head to foot in icy water by the two models, causing her to scream and run away.

The star’s video has since been mocked by the Italian press with the website Tgcom24 calling the clip “weird” and the newspaper Libero mocking her mispronunciation of ALS as "ASL".

YouTube users were even less forgiving with one viewer writing: “There are human Ice Bucket [Challenges]. Then there is Donatella Versace.”

The ‘Ice Bucket Challenge’ was started by 27-year-old former college baseball player Pete Frates, who for the past two years has suffered from amytrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

A neurodegenerative disease which causes muscle atrophy, difficulty with speaking and breathing, ALS, known as SLA in Italy, has gained huge global awareness since celebrities began completing the icy challenge.

As of Wednesday, August 27th, The ALS Association said it had received $94.3 million in donations compared to $2.7 million during the same time period last year (July 29th to August 27th).

SEE ALSO: 'Ice bucket videos can distract from ALS cause'

The craze has proved popular in Italy with Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and football star Mario Balotelli taking part in the challenge in the past week. 

This week The Local spoke to Marco Pagani, an Italian brain scientist about how his research can help improve diagnosis and help patients get treatment sooner.

“We were looking for a pattern to distinguish between a normal brain and a brain with ALS. We mapped 90 different regions of the brain and found a pattern of brains with ALS,” he told The Local.

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