Generous Beyonce Knowles has handed over her pay cheque from her new movie, Cadillac Records, in aid of the recovering drug addicts who helped her transform into troubled blues great Etta James in the biopic.

The clean-cut singer had no idea how to play a drug abuser, so she spent a day with addicts at New York’s Phoenix House recovery centre.

Knowles, 27, was so touched by the women she met and moved by their stories of hhardship that she is handing over the big bucks, according to Cadillac Records director Darnell Martin.

The centre’s spokesman Karen Sodomick told Giant magazine the R&B superstar will also donate her time, adding: “She and her mum suggested cosmetology for our skills-training programme. We’re working with them now to make it happen.”

This article was first published in The New Paper on Dec 15, 2008.

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