Pink stops concert to comfort 14-year-old girl who lost her mom: 'It was a hug from heaven'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}
Pink took a moment during her concert in Australia on Monday to run down the stage and comfort a 14-year-old girl who lost her mother just two months before the show.
The singer stopped her set in Brisbane after Leah Murphy’s sign caught her attention. Leah was in the audience with her aunt, Katrina Donkin, and waving poster boards that read: "Hi, my name's Leah. I'm 14 years old and I just lost my beautiful mom. I would love a hug.”
Donkin told Australian Broadcasting Corporation that initially the singer couldn’t read the signs. Other fans started grabbing the signs and began waving them to get Pink’s attention.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}
"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 network. "She couldn't read it, but someone handed her a little brochure about Leah and she read it out."
Pink then began walking toward Leah and embraced the 14-year-old.
"We ended up at the front row and Pink just held her for…it felt like 20 seconds,” the aunt said. “And Leah's only 14, she's a teeny-tiny little thing and she just sobbed uncontrollably in her arms.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}
“Pink was just so genuine, she said, 'Hey, don't cry, everything's going to be OK,’” Leah said.
Pink took a selfie with Leah after the sweet exchange and signed the teen’s arm with a marker, according to Donkin. The singer then went back on stage and told the audience to “call your mom” before continuing with her set.
Donkin said Leah hasn’t stopped talking about the special moment.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}
"Pink was just so genuine, she said, 'Hey, don't cry, everything's going to be okay.'"
"I haven't seen her smile so much since. Her dad said he woke up feeling happy today [Wednesday], happier than he has been in a long time," she said. "I just really feel it was a hug from heaven. I do feel her mom orchestrated the whole thing."
Leah’s mother, Debbie, had purchased tickets to go see Pink in concert before her death. The teen, her aunt and her friends flew from north Queensland to Brisbane to see the concert.
But the special hug almost didn’t happen. The night before the concert, Donkin realized she forgot the tickets at her home in Cairns. She had a neighbor break into her house and retrieve them. The neighbor then handed it to a Qantas airline worker she knew.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}
"She then asked the pilots of a flight that arrived in Brisbane at lunch time if they could take them down and they said yes,” Donkin said. "They handed delivered them to me…I went back out to the airport and the captain walked off and gave me an envelope.”