One Love Manchester concert raises nearly $3.5 million
The total raised for the We Love Manchester fund is about $13 million.
-- The One Love Manchester concert held Sunday night to benefit the victims of last month's attack at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, is being hailed as a triumph.
Between text message and online donations, the show -- which featured performances by Grande, Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, The Black Eyed Peas, Coldplay and more -- raised $3.49 million, the British Red Cross announced.
That brings the total raised by the British Red Cross' "We Love Manchester Emergency Fund" to nearly $13 million.
It was a personal feat for Grande, too. The singer's manager, Scooter Braun, told Billboard magazine that at first he doubted the show could even happen.
"From the moment the idea [of the benefit concert] came, I was very obsessed with it...[but] I had to slow my mind down because Ariana ... didn’t know if she could ever go on stage again. And then two days after, she called me and she goes, 'Look, I need to do something ... if I don’t do something, I feel like they might have died in vain,'" he said. "Her courage and bravery is just amazing."
Braun added, "The city of Manchester was the hero of the show."