Taylor Swift has delivered a heartfelt message in honor of the victims of last year’s Manchester bombing.
“You’ve shown that you’re never gonna let anyone forget about those victims. And you’ve shown that you have such incredible resilience to keep dancing and to keep the innocence and to keep the joy and to keep the joy,” the pop star, 28, told the crowd at the first U.K. show of her smash Reputation Stadium Tour.
“I just want to say, Manchester: It is such an honor to play for you tonight,” Swift added before she launched into an acoustic performance of her song “Dancing with Our Hands Tied.”
On May 22, 2017, a bomber killed 22 people and injured more than 500 at the Manchester stop of Ariana Grande‘s Dangerous Woman Tour. Grande, 24, returned to the city 10 days after the attack to honor the victims and survivors with her star-studded One Love Manchester concert.
This isn’t the first time Swift has paused a concert for a speech. Last Saturday, during her second sold-out show in Chicago, she celebrated Pride Month and shared a message for the LGBTQ community.
“It’s very brave to be vulnerable about your feelings in any situation, but it’s even more brave to be honest about your feelings and who you love when you know that it might be met with adversity from society,” Swift told the crowd of 52,000.
She added: “This month and every month I want to send my love and respect to everybody who has been brave enough to be honest about how they feel, to live their lives as they are, as they feel they should be, as they identify.”
Swift’s Reputation Stadium Tour is projected to be one of the highest-grossing tours of all time. As Billboard reported, the “Delicate” singer has already raked in more than $54 million from her first five shows.
