Ariana Grande Makes 1st Public Statement Since Night of Bombing

Ariana Grande says she'll return to Manchester for a benefit concert to raise money for the victims of Monday's bombing and their families. The singer posted a letter to fans on Twitter Friday. It was Grande's first public statement since tweeting she was "broken" in the immediate wake of the bombing that killed 22 people and injured dozens more as they left her concert, Rolling Stone reports. Grande didn't announce a date for the benefit concert but says she'll have more details once everything is confirmed.

In the letter, Grande apologizes to her fans for what they must be going through while thanking them for their response to the tragedy. "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 off something as evil as what happened Monday," she writes. CNN reports Grande's fans have raised millions of dollars for victims of the bombing. "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," she writes in the letter. Grande's next scheduled performance is June 7 in Paris. (More Ariana Grande stories.)