Pink stops concert to comfort grieving 14-year-old girl who lost her mom: "I would love a hug"
Pink's compassion shone through when she stopped her concert in Brisbane, Australia, back in 2018 after seeing a 14-year-old girl hold up a sign. The sign said that the young teen's mother had died recently. Leah Murphy, who flew from north Queensland to Brisbane, was in the audience along with her aunt, Katrina Donkin, holding up posters that read: "Hi, my name's Leah. I'm 14 years old and I just lost my beautiful mom. I would love a hug.”
The young girl's mother Debbie, who passed away two months before the show, had tickets to attend one of Pink's Australian shows before her death, reports FOX News. Leah decided to go to the concert because she believed her mother would have wanted her to attend. The duo loved the musician's songs and her music was one of the many ways in which Leah and her mother bonded.
At the concert, Leah and her aunt were trying to get Pink's attention. "Once Pink got down to the quiet music she was looking out to the crowd, that's when I started waving the sign. I had strangers in the crowd grab them off us as well and start waving them. It was just enough for Pink to say, 'what is that?'"
Donkin recalled to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "She couldn't read it, but someone handed her a little brochure about Leah and she read it out." Donkin and her niece tried to make it all the way to the front row. "I just whispered in her ear, 'you're going to get your hug, sweetheart. We're going to get you the hug,'" Donkin said.
They made it all the way to meet the renowned singer and what happened next was truly a once-in-a-lifetime moment. "We ended up at the front row and Pink just held her for … it felt like 20 seconds. And Leah's only 14, she's a teeny-tiny little thing and she just sobbed uncontrollably in her arms. Pink was just so genuine, she said, 'hey, don't cry, everything's going to be okay.'"
"Pink took a selfie with her, signed her arm in marker, and then hopped back on the stage and said, 'everyone call your mum.'"
Small gestures like this can mean a whole lot for someone as young as Leah. "I haven't seen her smile so much since. Her dad said he woke up feeling happy today, happier than he has been in a long time," Donkin said. "I just really feel it was a hug from heaven. I do feel her mum orchestrated the whole thing."