Prince Harry gets rock-star greeting at star-studded Vax Live concert
Prince Harry got a rock-star greeting as he joined real pop royalty like newly single Jennifer Lopez at a star-studded pro-vaccination concert in California on Sunday night.
The 36-year-old prince left pregnant wife Meghan Markle at home as he attended the Global Citizen’s “Vax Live: The Concert to Reunite the World” in Inglewood — one of the largest concert gatherings in Southern California since the pandemic started.
Video shows the audience going wild, screaming and cheering and jumping to their feet as Harry strolled out on the large circular stage, dressed casually in a blue shirt.
He spoke to the audience for five minutes in his first public appearance since his grandfather Prince Philip’s funeral in the UK — and his first major public appearance in his new home of California.
Harry described online disinformation about vaccines as a “humanitarian crisis” that is “getting worse,” while also highlighting the plight of India and its “devastating second wave” of COVID-19 infections.
“The vaccine must be distributed to everyone everywhere,” the Duke of Sussex said.
“We cannot rest or truly recover until there is fair distribution to every corner of the world,” he said. “The virus does not respect borders and access to the vaccine cannot be determined by geography.”
The British prince joined bona fide rock and pop stars at the event, which will be aired on TV on May 8 and was hosted by Selena Gomez, who hailed “brave” front-line workers.
Lopez — who recently confirmed her split from Alex Rodriguez — spoke about how she’d been forced to spend Christmas apart from her mother because of the pandemic.
Now fully vaccinated, mom Guadalupe joined the star onstage to sing Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” which J.Lo said was “the song she used to sing to me as a baby.”
Other performers included Eddie Vedder, Foo Fighters, J Balvin and H.E.R., while Ben Affleck, Chrissy Teigen, Jimmy Kimmel, Sean Penn and David Letterman all appeared as special guest speakers.
Vedder called the concert the first “taste of the life we’ve all been missing” for more than a year.
“This is a feeling we have not had in some time,” he said. “There’s a microphone, a crowd. It feels good.”
The Foo Fighters were joined by surprise guest Brian Johnson of AC/DC for a rendition of “Back in Black.”
“We ain’t out of the woods yet … let’s work as hard as we can to make sure we can do this every night,” said frontman Dave Grohl.
Everyone in the audience was fully vaccinated, and media and production staff needed to show a negative COVID test before entering the stadium.
In a pre-taped message, President Biden insisted that “the vaccines are safe. I promise you. They work.”
“We’re working with leaders around the world to share more vaccines and boost production to make sure every country has the vaccines they need,” said the president, accompanied by first lady Jill Biden.
“If we get this done, we won’t have to miss another moment.”
The taped fundraising event will air May 8 on ABC, ABC News Live, CBS, YouTube and iHeartMedia broadcast radio stations.
With Post wires
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