Madonna showed the world the power of music Saturday night.
During a performance of her “Rebel Heart” tour in Stockholm, Madonna paused to ask the crowd to participate in a moment of silence for the victims of Friday’s attacks in Paris and their families.
“It’s been very hard for me to get through the show up to this point and not forget what happened,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “I need to take this moment to acknowledge the tragedy … and the senseless endings of precious life that occurred last night in Paris.”
Madonna pledged to continue to perform in the wake of the attacks, saying that doing otherwise would amount to letting the attackers win.
“Why am I up here dancing and having fun, when people are crying over the loss of their loved ones,” she asked the audience. “That is exactly what these people want to do. They want to shut us up. They want to silence us. And we won’t let them. We will never let them.”
At one point, the pop star reached into the crowd for a tissue to dry her tears.
After the moment of silence, she performed “Like a Prayer” and asked the crowd to sing together. Illuminated by the thousands of cell phones waving in unison, Madonna was clearly moved by the outpouring of emotion from the audience.
“The way we change the world is that we change the way we treat one another on a daily basis,” she said. “We must start treating every human being with dignity and respect.”
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