Millions of dollars of PPP funds went to celebrity businesses

From a godfather of cinema to Kermit the Frog, the U.S. government's small-business lending program sent money into unexpected corners of the entertainment industry.

While legendary names like Francis Ford Coppola and Jim Henson hardly evoke the image of small business, the leaders of modestly sized companies that bear their names say the funds have been essential. Francis Ford Coppola Presents, the broader brand of the director of "The Godfather" films and "Apocalypse Now," received a loan of between $5 million and $10 million to help keep 469 people employed, showed Treasury Department data on the Payroll Protection Program.

The Coppola winery's CEO Corey Beck said, "For us, our first and main focus was to make sure that we could keep them on the payroll with benefits even though we were closed. Here's something that's available to us, potentially a 1% loan, let's take advantage of it."

The Jim Henson Co., founded by the late creator of the Muppets and puppeteer of Kermit the Frog, also received funding. The Jim Henson Co. employs about 75 people, spokeswoman Nicole Goldman said. "Thanks to the approximate $2 million dollar PPP loan we received, we have been able to keep 100% of our staff employed during this unprecedented time."

Director Ridley Scott's production company, RSA Films, was approved for a loan of between $2 million and $5 million toward 42 jobs, while director Martin Scorsese's Sikelia production company was approved for between $150,000 and $350,000 to help keep 11 people employed, according to the data.

Reese Witherspoon's clothing brand Draper James, along with those of other celebrities including Kanye West and Khloe Kardashian, was approved for between $350,000 and $1 million. And Channing Tatum's New Orleans restaurant, Saints and Sinners, was approved for between $150,000 and $350,000.

Manifesto: New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow is writing a book he had not planned to write. "The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto" will be published in February, Harper announced. "At its base, equality is about power: equal access to it, equal treatment by it and equal control over it," Blow said. "The time is at an end for Black people begging and pleading, marching and chanting, for an equitable stake in that power. The time has come to simply assume it, to use the Constitution itself as the vehicle. I have written this book not as a meditation on race, not as a protestation, but as a plan. A manifesto."