Stars lose homes in Los Angeles area fires and Jamie Lee Curtis pledges $1M to relief effort

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Jeff Bridges, and R&B star Jhené Aiko, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events.

Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week's Oscar nominations have been delayed. And tens of thousands of Angelenos are displaced and awaiting word Thursday on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city's most famous denizens.

Thousands of structures have been destroyed but damage assessments are just beginning. More than 180,000 people are also under evacuation orders in the metropolitan area, from the Pacific Coast inland to Pasadena, a number that continues to shift as new fires erupt.

Late Wednesday, a fire in the Hollywood Hills was scorching the hills near the famed Hollywood Bowl and Dolby Theatre, which is the home of the Academy Awards. That fire had been largely contained without damage to Hollywood landmarks.

Here are how the fires are impacting celebrities and the Los Angeles entertainment industry:

Celebrities like Crystal and his wife, Janice, were sharing memories of the homes they lost.

The Crystals lost the home in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood that they lived in for 45 years.

“Janice and I lived in our home since 1979. We raised our children and grandchildren here. Every inch of our house was filled with love. Beautiful memories that can’t be taken away. We are heartbroken of course but with the love of our children and friends we will get through this,” the Crystals wrote in the statement.

After her learning her Pacific Palisades home was lost in the fires, Melissa Rivers says she was grateful her family was safe but devastated by “losing pieces of my family’s history.” Rivers says she was able to retrieve a few meaningful items, including her mother Joan’s Emmy and a photo of her father.

Mandy Moore's home in the Altadena neighborhood roughly 30 miles east of the Palisades is severely damaged and unlivable, but she said Thursday after touring her property that “the main part of our house is still standing.” A studio used by her husband and his brother, two members of the group Dawes, was destroyed and they lost “every instrument and piece of equipment they've ever owned. ... Everyone we know lost everything."

Moore said she's “feeling weird survivors guilt.”

Jeff Bridges and his siblings lost a family Malibu home to the wildfires, according to his publicist. The house, on the Pacific Coast Highway, had belonged to their parents and was not a primary residence for the siblings.

Grammy-nominated R&B singer Jhené Aiko shared that she lost her home in the Los Angeles-area wildfires. “Me and my children’s home is gone,” she wrote on Instagram Thursday. “Burned to the ground with all of our things inside. Lord have mercy. Thankful we still have each other.”

Hilton posted a news video clip on Instagram Wednesday and said it included footage of her destroyed home in Malibu. “This home was where we built so many precious memories. It’s where Phoenix took his first steps and where we dreamed of building a lifetime of memories with London,” she said, referencing her young children.

Cary Elwes, the star of “The Princess Bride” and numerous other films, wrote on Instagram Wednesday that his family was safe but their home had burned in the coastal Palisades fire. “Sadly we did lose our home but we are grateful to have survived this truly devastating fire,” Elwes wrote.

Jamie Lee Curtis, who was among the stars who evacuated due to the Palisades fire, says she and her family are pledging $1 million to start a “fund of support” for those affected by the blazes burning in and around Los Angeles.

The actor announced the pledge on Instagram Thursday. The previous night, she tearfully appeared on “The Tonight Show” and urged people to help communities affected by the fires.

“As you know, where I live is on fire right now,” Curtis said. “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 have lost their homes now."

The Oscar winner wrote that she had been in touch with state and city leaders about how the money might be distributed “for the most impact.”

The Recording Academy, which bestows Grammy Awards, along with its MusiCares charity pledged $1 million to help musicians affected by the fires.

“The music community is being so severely impacted but we will come together as an industry to support one another," Harvey Mason jr., CEO of the Recording Academy and MusiCares, said in a statement.

The blazes have thrown Hollywood's carefully orchestrated awards season into disarray.

The AFI Awards, which were set to honor “Wicked,” “Anora” and other awards season contenders, had been scheduled for Friday.

The AARP Movies for Grownups Awards, which honor movies and television shows that resonate with older audiences, were set for Friday but have been postponed.

The Critics Choice Awards, originally scheduled for Sunday, have been postponed until Feb. 26.

Thursday, the Producers Guild Awards announced they would delay their nominations from Friday to Sunday.

Each of the shows feature projects that are looking for any advantage they can get in the Oscar race and were scheduled during the Academy Awards voting window.

The Oscar nominations are also being delayed two days to Jan. 19 and the film academy has extended the voting window due to the fires.

Flames burned parts of the Palisades Charter High School, which has been featured in many Hollywood productions including the 1976 horror movie “Carrie,” the 2003 remake of “Freaky Friday” and the TV series “Teen Wolf.”

The Palisades fire also destroyed the historic ranch house that belonged to Hollywood legend Will Rogers. It was among multiple structures destroyed at both Will Rogers State Historic Park and Topanga State Park. The historic Topanga Ranch Motel, built by William Randolph Hearst in 1929, also burned down.

Rogers’ ranch, built on land he bought in the 1920s, occupied some 359 acres in what is now Pacific Palisades. It included a 31-room ranch house, a stable, golf course and riding trails. His wife donated it to California State Parks in 1944.

Beach front homes are destroyed by the Palisades Fire Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025 in Malibu, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Water is dropped by helicopter on the burning Sunset Fire in the Hollywood Hills section of Los Angeles, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)

JERUSALEM (AP) — Over two dozen families from one of the few remaining Palestinian Bedouin villages in the central West Bank have packed up and fled their homes in recent days, saying harassment by Jewish settlers living in unauthorized outposts nearby has grown unbearable.

The village, Ras Ein el-Auja, was originally home to some 700 people from more than 100 families that have lived there for decades.

Twenty-six families already left on Thursday, scattering across the territory in search of safer ground, say rights groups. Several other families were packing up and leaving on Sunday.

“We have been suffering greatly from the settlers. Every day, they come on foot, or on tractors, or on horseback with their sheep into our homes. They enter people’s homes daily,” said Nayef Zayed, a resident, as neighbors took down sheep pens and tin structures.

Israel's military and the local settler governing body in the area did not respond to requests for comment.

Other residents pledged to stay put for the time being. That makes them some of the last Palestinians left in the area, said Sarit Michaeli, international director at B’Tselem, an Israeli rights group helping the residents.

She said that mounting settler violence has already emptied neighboring Palestinian hamlets in the dusty corridor of land stretching from Ramallah in the West to Jericho, along the Jordanian border, in the east.

The area is part of the 60% of the West Bank that has remained under full Israeli control under interim peace accords signed in the 1990s. Since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted in October 2023, over 2,000 Palestinians — at least 44 entire communities — have been expelled by settler violence in the area, B'Tselem says.

The turning point for the village came in December, when settlers put up an outpost about 50 meters (yards) from Palestinian homes on the northwestern flank of the village, said Michaeli and Sam Stein, an activist who has been living in the village for a month.

Settlers strolled easily through the village at night. Sheep and laundry went missing. International activists had to begin escorting children to school to keep them safe.

“The settlers attack us day and night, they have displaced us, they harass us in every way” said Eyad Isaac, another resident. “They intimidate the children and women.”

Michaeli said she’s witnessed settlers walk around the village at night, going into homes to film women and children and tampering with the village’s electricity.

The residents said they call the police frequently to ask for help — but it seldom arrives. Settlement expansion has been promoted by successive Israeli governments over nearly six decades. But Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government, which has placed settler leaders in senior positions, has made it a top priority.

That growth has been accompanied by a spike in settler violence, much of it carried out by residents of unauthorized outposts. These outposts often begin with small farms or shepherding that are used to seize land, say Palestinians and anti-settlement activists. United Nations officials warn the trend is changing the map of the West Bank, entrenching Israeli presence in the area.

Some 500,000 Israelis have settled in the West Bank since Israel captured the territory, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. Their presence is viewed by most of the international community as illegal and a major obstacle to peace. The Palestinians seek all three areas for a future state.

For now, displaced families of the village have dispersed between other villages near the city of Jericho and near Hebron further south, said residents. Some sold their sheep and are trying to move into the cities.

Others are just dismantling their structures without knowing where to go.

"Where will we go? There’s nowhere. We’re scattered,” said Zayed, the resident, “People’s situation is bad. Very bad.”

An Israeli settler herds his flock near his outpost beside the Palestinian village of Ras Ein al-Auja in the West Bank, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

A Palestinian resident of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank burns trash, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian children play in the West Bank village of Ras Ein al-Auja, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian residents of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee mounting settler violence, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian residents of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee mounting settler violence, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)