Beyonce
Beyonce Knowles embraced Nelson Mandela at a 2003 AIDS benefit concert in Cape Town.
Beyonce Knowles embraced Nelson Mandela at a 2003 AIDS benefit concert in Cape Town.
"I will never forget my friend Madiba," former President Bill Clinton tweeted after Mandela's death.
South African-born actress Charlize Theron met with Mandela in 2004. "My thoughts and love go out to the Mandela family. Rest in Peace Madiba. You will be missed, but your impact on this world will live forever," she tweeted after his death.
Mandela joined Robert De Niro, Hugh Grant and Whoopi Goldberg at the 2002 Tribeca Film Festival, the first following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Mandela praised filmmaking in his remarks, calling it "a medium that is not bound in its reach." He added, "It can reach out to all strata and sectors of society and across national and linguistic boundaries."
Gordon Ramsay shook the former South African president's hand during a 2009 benefit lunch for the Mandela Children's Foundation.
After Michael Jackson died in 2009, Mandela said he and his family had become close to the king of pop over the years. "We had great admiration for his talent and that he was able to triumph over tragedy on some many occasions in his life," Mandela wrote in a letter to the late singer's family.
First Lady Michelle Obama met with Mandela at his home in Houghton, South Africa. Her daughters, Malia and Sasha, joined her on the 2011 trip.
Mandela became a fan of De Niro's work during his decades of imprisonment, reportedly watching his films in jail.
"As an activist I have pretty much been doing what Nelson Mandela tells me since I was a teenager," Bono wrote in an essay published by Time after Mandela's death. "Irish people related all too easily to the subjugation of ethnic majorities," he added. "From our point of view, the question as to how bloody South Africa would have to get on its long road to freedom was not abstract."