Sean Penn started his Haiti charity/foundation JPHRO shortly after the massive earthquake in 2010. Some say Penn was doing penance for all of his years of douchebaggery. Some say he was inspired to give back after his son survived a bad accident. Some say Sean always had a compassionate side and this was just the latest example. And some said he just absorbed himself in the cause of the moment, and he would forget about it soon enough. Sean lived for a time in Haiti, but he’s back to living full time in LA and wherever he has to go on location for film shoots. But his JPHRO is still raising money for Haitians, and Sean throws a now-annual fundraiser for his foundation. Last month’s star-studded fundraiser raised $6 million for JPHRO.
But I’ve always wondered how much of the JPHRO money actually makes it to Haiti. Penn started the foundation from scratch, and I always assumed the start-up costs and administrative costs must have been significant. That’s the thing about starting your own charity versus simply attaching your name to an already-established charity: it’s all on you to get a significant amount of the money raised to the actual people in need. Well, a Haitian filmmaker named Raoul Peck has made a documentary called Fatal Assistance, and Peck claims that “only a fraction” of the $9 billion pledged to Haiti has actually made it to Haiti or the Haitian people. It’s an indictment of many of the failed charity schemes and half-hearted attempts to help, especially since 350,000 Haitians are still homeless or living in makeshift camps all these years later.
So, obviously, Page Six contacted Sean Penn to see if he would comment on Peck’s film. Here’s what Sean had to say:
“Peck is confusing the funds committed by international donors (foreign governments) in 2010 with the tangible and provable monies raised by JPHRO and others spent to extraordinary effect. His simplification of criticism echoes strategies once used by tyrants and Nazis, and its only result can be that which is injurious to the extraordinary people of Haiti. Self-serving critics like Peck are Haiti’s greatest enemy.”
Here’s the thing: I think there probably is a worthy investigation to be done into how much money actually reached the Haitians. There’s also a worthy investigation to be done into which of these little Haitian-charity start-ups are actually working on any level. And if Penn had simply said that “there is confusion” about which funds are which and what is actually working, I would have believed him. But he went straight for the Nazi comparison, Godwin’s Law be damned. When your answer to legitimate criticism and questioning is “YOU ARE A NAZI FOR ASKING QUESTIONS,” then I’m sorry, we need to ask those questions.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.
If i saw him like that, in the above photo (with cigarette), I’d mistakenly put change in his cup. And then he’d punch me and call me Mussolini.
Nah, he’d punch you and call you a dirty rotten socialist for spreading the wealth.
I’m sure his son would call you worse things
I feel like I should clarify that that was a shot at hopper Penn, or whatever his stupid name is
I thought you meant his son would call Kiddo worse names because she’s a godless commie pinko.😉
This whole thread is hilarious.
I actually thought he looked hot in the header photo. Then I remembered the douchebaggery things.
I don’t know if he’s specifically hiding anything. Sean Penn always struck me as an uneducated blowhard who is deeply, damagingly insecure. That said, he strikes me as the type who could be easily manipulated by telling him what he wants to hear.
Nazi comparisons? How much of an idiot do you have to be to haul this one out for a movie. ISIS? Yeah they’re comparable to Nazis. A filmmaker? Shut up Penn.
This guy. THIS GUY. I cannot fecking stand him.
His existence is injurious to my mental health.
I don’t know about Penn’s own charity but he is absolutely right about government donor pledges. Countries pledge then don’t deliver. This is the reason for the big Syrian push at the moment. The reconstruction pledges for Gaza haven’t been met. The Ebola pledges weren’t met. Yadda for all the pledges for everything.
It *is* an entirely separate issue from private charities. As ever, Penn fluffs an important point.
His charity might be 1% admin or 99% admin for all I know. But isn’t the same thing as governments pledging then not delivering.
ETA: I looked up the most recent accounts for Penn’s charity, ending Dec 2012. Charity program spending $13.8m; admin $746k; fundraising costs $2.1m. Decide for yourselves!
You just ruined all my jokes, dammit. Still “Nazi” wasn’t the best descriptor.
Haha. Sorry. I remember a Democracy Now report ages and ages ago with him in Haiti and I gotsta say it really impressed me. He was definitely down and dirty and intimately involved with his charity’s doings.
He does seem to be a HORRIBLE man but I’m really not entirely sure that means we should say he can’t have a redeeming feature, you know?
I won’t be serious again today!
Miss Sixer, you are on point.
The sad truths are not highlighted in his argument. And the conversation would have gone somewhere important and deep. Just like the letter Angelina wrote on the 4 year old warfare happening in Syria today.
Yes. The UN agencies have had to suspend programs in both Syria and Gaza just this year purely because government pledges at international aid conferences haven’t been met. Nothing to do with the efficiency of private charities.
I think Sean means well. He probably really did want to help Haiti. I don’t place him in the same category as Wyclef John, who used a charity to set his friends up with nice gifts and let them fly all over the world under the pretense of “help.”
But I think Sean is an actor who has very little actual experience with charity or how to actually translate money into tangible action. Tons of actors are this way. Good intentions, bad execution. If this filmmaker has revealed that not a lot of the money is reaching the people who actually need it, then the response should be to say, “This is terrible, and we’re going to fix this.” Not get that defensive that quick. It just makes Sean look terrible. He flies off the handle so much.
Um… I don’t even like the guy, but he spent forever at the frontlines of that charity. Right in the trenches. Like, years of his life. Not parachute visits.
how do you know this? They put in the magazines what they want us to see. he may have spent a fraction of the time he said he was there. He was in LA all the time. Word.
It’s not about how many visits Wyclef made. It’s about how he allowed the charity to be run. It took in a crazy amount of money right after the earthquake and it came out later than the majority of the funds had been spent on lavish trips, costs associated with entertainment and concerts, etc. Jean paid himself his traditional concert fee for appearing at a benefit for his own charity – that’s shady.
I get that he is from Haiti, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be a crook.
And he hardly uses his charity for glossy PR photo shoots. Like him or not but his intentions seem real.
Wyclef Jean is a complete disgrace.
Once again celebrities, let’s remember the two tenets of interviews when making complaints:
The only thing like rape is rape. Not having your picture taken, not being followed by paps, not having to answer stupid questions.
AND
And this is really a universal law that everyone should abide by, is that the first person to bring up Nazis/the Holocaust in an argument for any reason other than it being the actual subject of said argument, loses.
Frankly, a celeb founding a charity would seem to be more deserving of tight scrutiny because it seems so many attach their name to a cause without putting any actual thought to it which seems to leave a lot of opportunity for waste. When even established charities have been called out for wasting money instead of directing it to its intended target, he really has no place whining. But then again, what would Sean Penn do with himself if he was screaming about being persecuted?
I can’t even focus on his face more than a second, don’t know how Charlize does it.
Most charities are like that as it explained up there. Less than 10% of what we donate goes to right people which it was intended and rest is used for their flights, lining their office floor with 3″ carpet, chandelier, Piano etc. It’s saddening. Here is a site which lists and grades Charities. I use this as a guide every year to donate.
http://www.charitywatch.org/index.html
You are known by the company you keep, Charlize.
Speaks volumes, in this case.
Some say that the charity he’s done in Haiti is just a PR op for cleaning his image after the messy divorce, the drugs (admitted by him), the cheating on his ex-wife, the domestic abuse of Madonna, the paparazzi punching….I could go on and on Jesus,…. the wholesome douchebag miserable life he has, let’s put it that way. There’s a lot of things that smell bad about that Haiti thing. He was “dating” that well known paid escort that is Petra Nemcova and then he was named ambassador at large by the prime minister. What happened next? Petra Nemcova starts dating the Prime Minister (who gives me the vibes of a corrupt sleazy ass) Then he is photographed carrying heavy supplies. Who would do that scene if not for the cameras? Then the morphine story about his son and Chavez giving him the morphine to Haiti. Then (and this is another dark story) he’s being paid to give “acting lessons” in Venezuela. WTF? Did somebody actually dig on the story? how much he has been paid? did he really gave those “lessons”? really? an Oscar winner? Then also the story about freeing out of jail an american jewish businessman in Bolivia accused of horrible crimes…all of this somebody need to investigate….
I think you should investigate these matters, Agent Santana. You seem particularly invested in Penn’s alleged activities.
What happened next?
That’s how I read it too.
x a million 👶 excellent comment.
also: for the time he was living in Haiti (I guess it was a couple of weeks really) I feel bad for all those beautiful poor haitian girls in their 20’s that may have crossed his path: how many big nosed babies were born nine months after he lived there?
Wow. Well, this comment isn’t going to be very anonymous, but I produced a documentary in 2012 that aired on PBS, despite the best efforts of some NGOs (one in particular did its best to kill it) and investigated where the money donated to major charities went after the Haiti earthquake. Most of the money donated to major organizations did *not* reach Haiti. Most of it stayed in the U.S. That said, there are a lot of wonderful organizations that did and continue to do a great job. But most of them are in the business of staying in business, not solving a problem–even disaster response. The government money that Penn is referring to is what foreign governments pledged during a conference, and, yes, very little of it actually was followed through. But that’s the least of the aid issues. Anyway, I haven’t crawled through the financials of JP/HRO, but that NGO, like all others, is under no legal obligation of transparency. Sorry for the long response! Long-time reader, first time responder!
The local goverment should be investigared as well, not only the charities. There are lots of ways to lose money.
After the big UNICEFF scandal several years ago we stopped giving money to big charities. We found small ones that have tight financial control and transparency about how the donations are spent.
The way he was attacking wyclef jean I hope his efforts are clean.
He may do some good deeds in his time, but for me he’s just a left winged white guy who sees himself as a hero.
You’re an ass, sean.
If JPHRO is doing such a fine job then Sean Penn should welcome the scrutiny instead of throwing a hissy fit.
I can’t take Sean Penn seriously as a philanthropist after he supported Hugo Chavez. The man is clearly so far up his own a$$ it’s clouding his vision.
He looks like a Spongebob character. Squidward?
Charity begins at home, buddy.
So Americans should only help Americans? That’s kind of narrow minded.
I’m not American but I know Republicans call everyone, including your president, a Nazi. Or my favorite contradiction, a Nazi communist. Why don’t they get any backlash? Meh, whatever.
Raoul Peck, Haiti worst enemy? Really?
The guy is a great director, fictions or documentaries.
His “Lumumba” was a great work, he directed brilliant performances for Eriq Ebouaney (Lumumba) and Alex Descas (Mobutu). In a time where the shortage of great roles for black actors is pointed, it’s a shame to miss this one .
And for someone about to become the stepfather of an African-American boy, who’s also a director and apparently interested in left-leaning personalities, such a disdain for Peck is just weird.
First Sean routinely goes to Haiti and stays for extended periods of time. Second, a lot of the money for the first few 2 years of JP’s existence came from fundraising and private donations. This was because the organization had to prove itself before it would receive funding from standard donors. Sean jas admitted in the early days he had no idea what he was doing but he managed to hire people with years of experience who worked their asses off in the IDP camp and doing rubble removal. While many standard NGOs have given up on Haiti, JP is still there. Say what you will about Sean’s personal life and his relationships with those you don’t politically agree with but his committment to Haiti remains stalwart.