The INSIDER Summary:
- Ariana Grande has released her first in-depth statement since the attack at her Manchester concert Monday night.
- She posted a lengthy note on her Instagram in which she expressed condolences for the victims.
- She also promised to return to Manchester to perform a concert benefiting victims and their families.
A devastating terror attack at a Manchester Ariana Grande concert on Monday night killed 22 and injured dozens more.
On Friday, the 23-year-old singer posted a lengthy, touching note on her Instagram in response to the tragedy. It marked her first in-depth statement since the attack.
"My heart, prayers, and deepest condolences are with the victims of the Manchester Attack and their loved ones," she began. "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."
She went on to say that she plans to return to Manchester to perform a benefit concert and "to spend time with" her fans. She also urged fans to "come closer together" and "love more" in the wake of the attack. "We won't let this divide us," she wrote. "We won't let hate win."
Here's the post as it appears on Grande's Instagram profile:
And here's the full transcription of the note:
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.
I have been thinking of my fans, and of you all, non stop over the past week. They 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 of something as evil as what happened Monday.
YOU are the opposite.
I am sorry for the pain and fear that you must be feeling and for the trauma that you, too, must be experiencing.
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 do 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.
I'll be returning to the incredible brave city of Manchester to spend 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 a part of our expression of love for Manchester. I will have details to share with you as soon as everything is confirmed.
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. To meet their friends they've made online. To express themselves.
This will not change that.
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 my heart everyday and I will think of them with everything I do for the rest of my life.
Ari
Previously, Grande had released only a brief tweet about the attack, writing that she felt "broken." TMZ later reported that sources close to Grande said she was "inconsolable" and "in hysterics" as she learned about the casualties.
All 22 victims of the attack have now been named. They include a police officer, and 8-year-old girl, several teenagers, and an online celebrity named Martyn Hett.
Grande's tour promoters have also announced that her Dangerous Woman tour has been suspended in order to "further assess the situation and pay our proper respects to those lost," according to a statement.