Pop star Ariana Grande said Friday she would return to Manchester for a benefit concert to raise money for victims of the bombing that killed 22 people and injured 59 after her concert on Monday.
In the statement posted to Twitter, Grande wrote that she would return to the British city once she was able to confirm a date, and thanked her fans for their love and support.
“I have been thinking of my fans, and of you all, non stop over the past week,” Grande wrote. “The way you have handled all of this has been more inspiring and made me more proud than you’ll ever know.”
She went on to say the love her fans have shown one another was the polar opposite of the “heinous intentions” of those behind the attack.
Grande said she intended her “Dangerous Woman” tour to be a “safe space” for her fans, where they could meet one another and enjoy her music.
“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.”
She urged her fans to respond to the violence with love and kindness.
“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,” Grande wrote. “Our response to this violence must be to come closer together, to help each other, to love more, to sing louder and live more kindly and generously than we did before.”
Grande said other artists have reached out to her about performing at the benefit concert, but did not specify who.
The pop singer, who had finished performing when the explosion struck, tweeted in the hours after the attack that she was “broken.”
Her management announced on Wednesday that she was suspending her upcoming tour dates “until we can further assess the situation and pay our proper respects to those lost."
Those injured in the attack included children and teens, with the youngest of those killed just 8 years old.
Police said on Wednesday that suspected bomber Salman Abedi was part of a terrorist network. So far, six suspects have been arrested following the bombing.
Grande added in the statement that she will forever be thinking of those who were killed and those who were affected by the tragedy.
“They will be on my mind and in my heart every day and I will think of them with everything I do for the rest of my life,” she wrote.
