The singer is raising money for Manchester bombing victims and their families.
Ariana Grande took the stage at her One Love Manchester benefit concert today.
The singer, sporting a white sweatshirt with the words “One Love Manchester” written on the front, jeans and her signature pony tail, opened her set with a performance of “Be Alright.”
Grande, 23, tweeted that she was “broken” in the immediate aftermath of the May 22 bombing that claimed the lives of 22 and wounded more than 100 at her Manchester, England, show.
However, in the days after the attack, she and her manager organized One Love Manchester — which will also feature artists including Coldplay, Justin Bieber, and Katy Perry — in order to give back to the community.
All proceeds from the show will go to the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund, which was founded by the Manchester City Council in conjunction with the British Red Cross, to aid the victims of the attack and their families.
Donations will go to the British Red Cross and may not be tax deductible. Additional fees may also apply.
“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 space for my fans. A place for them to escape, to celebrate, to heal, to feel safe, and to be themselves, ” she tweeted on May 26, when she announced the concert.
“This will not change that, ” she continued. “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.”
The singer suspended her tour after the bombing and it will resume on June 7 in Paris. Grande was photographed touching down in England on Friday, and spent time with hospitalized fans that day.
“The way you have handled all of this has been more inspiring and made me more proud than you’ll ever know, ” she wrote late last month of her “Arianators.” “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. YOU are the opposite.”
