Christine Haveford
As the world tries to come to terms with the horrific terrorist attack at the Ariana Grande concert, the singer has spoken out for the first time.
Ariana has confirmed she will return to Manchester after posting on Twitter: ‘We won’t let hate win’.
Suicide bomber Salman Abedi detonated his device on Monday, killing 22 people and injuring 119 more.
The ‘Side to Side’ singer postponed her world tour after the atrocity and went home to Florida in tears.
But now she has confirmed to fans that she will go back to the city for a benefit concert to support the families of the victims.
The 23-year-old wrote on Twitter: ‘My heart, prayers and deepest condolences are with the victims of the Manchester Attack and their loved ones.’
‘There is nothing I or anyone can do to take away the pain you are feeling or to make this better.’
‘However, I extend my hand and heart and everything I possibly can give to you and yours, should you want or need my help in any way.’
‘The only thing we can do now is choose how we let this affect us and how we live our lives from here on out.’
She added: ‘I have been thinking of my fans, and of you all, non stop over the past week.
‘The way you have handled all of this has been more inspiring and made me more proud than you’ll ever know.’
‘The compassion, kindness, love, strength and oneness that you’ve shown one another this past week is the exact opposite of the heinous intentions it must take to pull off something as evil as what happened Monday.
‘I am sorry for the pain and fear that you must be feeling and for the trauma that you, too, must be experiencing.’
The former child star passionately wrote that terror would not ‘divide’ her fans and urged everyone to ‘come closer together’ in the wake of the attack.
She went on to say: ‘We will never be able to understand why events like this take place because it is not in our nature, which is why we shouldn’t recoil.’
‘We will not quit or operate in fear. We won’t let this divide us. We won’t let hate win.’
‘I don’t want to go the rest of the year without being able to see and hold and uplift my fans, the same way they continue to uplift me.’
‘Our response to this violence must be to come closer together, to help each other, to love more, to sing louder and to live more kindly and generously than we did before.’
The former child actress shared a link to the Manchester Evening News JustGiving page to encourage fans to donate.
She said: ‘I’ll be returning to the incredibly brave city of Manchester to spend some time with my fans and to have a benefit concert in honor of and to raise money for the victims and their families.’
‘I want to thank my fellow musicians and friends for reaching out to be part of our expression of love for Manchester. I will have details to share with you as soon as a everything is confirmed.’
She continued: ‘From the day we started putting the Dangerous Woman Tour together, I said that this show, more than anything else, was intended to be a safe place for my fans.’
‘A place for them to escape, to celebrate, to heal, to feel safe and to be themselves. To meet their friends they’ve made online. To express themselves. This will not change that.’
She ended her note by praising the diversity of her fans and vowing to ‘honour those we have lost’.
‘When you look into the audience at my shows, you see a beautiful, diverse, pure, happy crowd.’
‘Thousands of people, incredibly different, all there for the same reason, music.’
‘Music is something that everyone on Earth can share. Music is meant to heal us, to bring us together, to make us happy. So that is what it will continue to do for us.
‘We will continue in honor of the ones we lost, their loved ones, my fans and all affected by this tragedy.
‘They will be on my mind and in my heart everyday and I will think of them with everything I do for the rest of my life.’
‘Ari.’
Grande suspended her Dangerous Woman world tour and canceled several European shows after the bombing.
Ariana’s tour will restart June 7 in Paris.
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