The singer-songwriter also addressed the heartache of tragedies in Australia, Rhode, Island, and Gaza
Gracie Abrams said she is “lighting a candle for everybody who is hurting” in an emotional message shared on Instagram yesterday.
In the now-vanished message, shared after Hanukkah got underway, Abrams expressed her dismay at all the cruelty, violence, and suffering happening in the world. She began with the two recent mass shootings in Australia and Rhode Island. She said she was “heartbroken” for the people killed at a Hanukkah celebration in Bondi Beach, and “devastated for their families during the holiday, a time meant for gathering and for light.” And she said she was “sick inside” for the victims and community at Brown University after two students were killed.
Abrams went on to mention the ongoing humanitarian crisis and “earthshattering pain” in Gaza as displaced Palestinians live under tarps that are “being whipped by the wind and the rain through the mud. Total desecration.”
And she condemned President Donald Trump for his comments mocking Rob Reiner, and after the director and his wife were killed, allegedly by their son. “Within 24 hours of the most unimaginable tragedy a family can endure, we see the President yet again reveal the most poisonous and vile narcissism maybe in the history of humanity,” she wrote. “Indefensible.”
Abrams ended her note by acknowledging the difficulty of living amidst so much anguish, while still trying to find some flickers of hope. “Over and over and over this happens. It is getting harder to find the words to describe the pain in the world. I am lighting a candle for everybody who is hurting.”
Abrams spent most of this year on the road in support of her 2024 album, The Secret of Us. In October, she took part in Rolling Stones’ annual Musicians on Musicians event alongside Cyndi Lauper, while she also dropped a new concert special, Apple Music Live: Gracie Abrams, featuring a performance at the famed Red Rocks Amphitheater.
