One of the quietest but most striking patterns in MDMotivator's run is how often genuinely famous people show up in his videos. Not as the headliners. Not as the subjects. Just as quiet co-conspirators in the surprise — the rapper who walks in with the gift, the actor who hands over the check, the investor who underwrites the campaign.

The list of A-list and B-list names who have collaborated with Zachery Dereniowski over the past few years is longer than most fans realize. Here's a running roundup of who's joined an MDMotivator video, what they brought to it, and why these collaborations work the way they do.

This article is designed to be updated periodically as new collaborations land.

Music

Big Sean

Detroit's most prominent mainstream rapper, and one of MDMotivator's more recent and visible collaborators. According to MDMotivator's own published video description, Big Sean joined Zachery for the April 2026 follow-up surprise that honored Denise — the 56-year-old Detroit grandmother who handed over her last $2 in the rain outside an 8 Mile pawn shop. He arrived alongside the Detroit Pistons organization and Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield. We covered the full Denise story in detail in our dedicated article.

Big Sean's involvement made cultural sense in the way few celebrity drop-ins do. The video was set in Detroit, on 8 Mile, with a Detroit subject. The most prominent Detroit rapper in mainstream music showing up is the natural exclamation point on a Detroit story.

Drake

According to recent MDMotivator video posts, Drake has appeared in at least one fan-focused video collaboration with Zachery in 2026. The setup involved Drake helping to surprise a fan or fans, in line with the broader MDMotivator format of using star power to make a non-celebrity's day. As of this writing, the specifics of the campaign are limited to what's been published in the videos themselves.

Fat Joe

The veteran New York rapper has been part of at least one MDMotivator collaboration where the focus was on community giving. Public coverage of the specific moment is limited; the appearance is one of several music-industry tie-ins that MDMotivator has built into the broader giving ecosystem.

Film & Television

Taraji P. Henson

The Empire and Hidden Figures actor — and one of the most public mental health advocates in entertainment, through her Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation — collaborated with Zachery on the Alma video in April 2026. According to MDMotivator's published video description, Henson helped orchestrate a surprise at a hair salon, where Alma was given $50,000 plus access to Henson's full haircare line.

The Henson collaboration is one of the more thematically aligned celebrity tie-ins in MDMotivator's run. Henson's foundation focuses specifically on mental health in the Black community, which sits in direct conversation with the work Zachery has been doing for the past five years.

Ice Cube

The rapper, actor, and BIG3 basketball league founder joined MDMotivator's most-viewed campaign of 2025: the Chantwan story. According to coverage of the campaign by GreaterGood, PRIMETIMER, and HypeFresh, Cube met Chantwan personally during a BIG3 game in Detroit, where Chantwan was given courtside access as part of the surprise that followed his mystery basketball moment. We covered the full Chantwan story in our dedicated article.

Kim Kardashian

According to a 2023 LinkedIn post from MDMotivator's marketing partner Onefluent Inc., Kardashian was involved in an MDMotivator collaboration tied to the Reform Alliance — the criminal justice reform organization Kardashian helps champion. The campaign included gifting a car to a deserving family, with on-the-ground coordination by Onefluent's Erica Williams. The connection to criminal justice reform is notable given how many MDMotivator subjects in subsequent years (most prominently Chantwan) have been people navigating reentry from incarceration.

Reality TV

Tyler Lucas

The most recent and one of the most thematically interesting collaborations on this list. Lucas, a U.S. Air Force pilot stationed in Sumter, South Carolina, won the second season of MrBeast's Beast Games on Amazon Prime Video in February 2026, taking home $5,105,000. According to coverage by SuperCarBlondie, he then teamed up with Zachery to find recipients and film giveaways — including the gifting of a brand-new Hyundai Tucson to a family of eight (Nazir, Crystal, and their six children) whose previous car had been constantly breaking down.

The Lucas collaboration is the largest crossover between MDMotivator and the MrBeast media universe to date. We cover it in full in our dedicated article.

Business & Investment

Daniel Lubetzky

The KIND Snacks founder and Shark Tank investor has been one of MDMotivator's most consistent celebrity-tier collaborators. According to MDMotivator's published video descriptions, Lubetzky has been involved in multiple campaigns over the past two years, most prominently the April 2026 Elvin video that raised more than $200,000 for an Austin father and grandfather. Lubetzky's involvement in that campaign helped make it the largest single-recipient Slingshot total in MDMotivator's recent run.

The KIND Snacks connection isn't incidental. KIND has historically built its brand around values-driven business and direct community impact, which dovetails neatly with the MDMotivator giving model. We cover the Elvin story in detail in our dedicated article.

Civic & Public Service

Mayor Mary Sheffield

Detroit's first elected woman mayor, sworn in on January 1, 2026 as the 76th mayor of the city, joined MDMotivator's April 2026 Denise surprise. Per the City of Detroit's official record, Sheffield made history not just as the first woman to be elected to the office but as the first Black woman to hold it in the city's more-than-300-year history.

Her appearance in the Denise video — alongside Big Sean and the Detroit Pistons — gave that moment a distinct civic weight. It positioned the surprise not just as celebrity goodwill but as Detroit officially recognizing one of its own.

Sports Organizations

The Detroit Pistons

The NBA franchise has appeared in at least one MDMotivator surprise (the Denise follow-up in April 2026), bringing organizational endorsement and gift coordination. While the Pistons are an organization rather than an individual celebrity, their involvement in the Denise video reflects MDMotivator's growing ability to bring institutional partners into single-recipient surprises.

BIG3 Basketball League

Ice Cube's three-on-three professional basketball league hosted Chantwan as a courtside guest during the surprise that followed his July 2025 video. Per coverage by GreaterGood and HypeFresh, the BIG3 night included strangers at the game singing Happy Birthday to Chantwan and bringing him a brownie with a candle.

Patterns Worth Noticing

Lay all of these collaborations side by side and a few patterns become clear.

Most celebrity drop-ins are thematically chosen. Big Sean for Detroit. Henson for mental health. Cube for the basketball-veteran story. Sheffield for the Detroit civic angle. Lubetzky for the working-father / generational-stability narrative. The pairings are deliberate. Zachery isn't just dropping in random famous faces; he's matching the celebrity to the subject's specific story.

The celebrity is rarely the protagonist. In nearly every case above, the celebrity arrives in the back half of the video, in the surprise reveal — not in the opening setup. The structural integrity of the format depends on the stranger being the lead. Celebrity guests amplify the surprise without taking it over.

The roster has been expanding. The 2021–2023 era of MDMotivator was largely just Zachery and a sign. The 2024–2026 era has progressively brought in more institutional and celebrity partners. That trajectory likely continues.

Coming Up Next

We covered the broad celebrity roster here. Our next article goes deep on one of the most interesting individual collaborations of the past year — the Tyler Lucas video, where the $5 million winner of Beast Games season 2 partnered with Zachery to give away a brand-new car and life-changing cash to strangers from his own neighborhood.

Sources

Note: This article is intended as a periodically updated reference page. Coverage of specific collaborations (especially Drake and Fat Joe) is limited to what has been documented in MDMotivator's own public video posts; more detail will be added as additional reporting becomes available.

This article is part of an independent fan site dedicated to documenting the work, life, and impact of Zachery Dereniowski (MDMotivator). We are not affiliated with Zachery, his team, Kindness Is Cool, the Mental Health Movement, the KindnessWithZachery Foundation, or any of his sponsors. All content is researched and written by fans, sourced from public material, and intended as celebratory and informational. To follow Zachery directly, visit @mdmotivator on TikTok or Instagram.