Piers Morgan rarely admits when he’s wrong (especially when it comes to his stance on gun-control, in which case he is very wrong). Morgan’s not afraid to be controversial either. He shocked the world when he came out in support of Donald Trump’s presidency. He also angered many of Ariana Grande’s fans when he attacked her over her handling of the victims of the Manchester Islamic attack that took place during her concert. Morgan’s has since backtracked on his crticism of GRane and has in fact, offered a heart-felt apology to American pop-star for insinuating she was being selfish when Grande returned home to Boca Raton, FL immediately following the Islamic terror attack on her fans that left 22 innocent people dead and over 120 injured. Grande did in fact return home, but she didn’t stay there very long…

Dear Ariana,

To be honest, I didn’t know much about you before the Manchester terror attack.

Obviously, I knew you were a hugely popular young American pop star. But I wouldn’t have been able to name a single one of your songs, nor recognise you if you came up to me in the street and slapped me in the face.

Something you’d have been perfectly entitled to do after my scathing remarks about you two weeks ago, when you flew straight home to Florida within hours of the bombing.

I was very angry then.

Angry at the wicked, senseless act of terrorism that took such a devastating toll on so many lives.

Angry, especially, at the thought of all those poor young girls who’d been deliberately targeted, murdered and maimed.

Angry at the abject failure to prevent this obscene assassin from perpetrating his evil – despite myriad red flags about his radicalisation.

Angry at the same old meaningless rhetoric being spouted by our politicians that we hear after every one of these Islamist attacks.

So yes, I was angry.

Then I saw footage on TV of Her Majesty The Queen visiting the wounded in Manchester hospitals, and in my heightened state of indignant fury, I wondered where the hell you were?

Well, I knew where you were: your high security mansion in Boca Raton.

I just didn’t understand why you’d left it to a 91-year-old pensioner to check if your wounded fans were OK.

‘God bless The Queen and her kind heart,’ tweeted your friend Katy Perry.

To which I replied: ‘Agreed. Might have been nice if Ariana Grande had stayed to do the same.’

People reacted with outrage to my criticism, believing it to be crass and insensitive, but I doubled down: ‘If the Queen can visit the victims in hospital, so can the star they paid to see. I expected her to stay, visit and comfort her wounded fans and relatives of those who died.’

I believed those words then and I believe them now.

I still think it was wrong of you to flee the country so fast. I still think it would have been far better if you’d hung around to see your suffering fans first.

To my hard, cynical journalist mind, you had selfishly deserted them in their hour of need and run away from your responsibilities.

You’re not a kid, you’re 23 – old enough to make your own decisions.

Yes, I know you were shocked by what happened that night but you weren’t actually bombed and many of your fans were.

So I was angry with you, Ariana.

And I think the victims’ families felt similar disappointment.

In fact, I know they did because one of them told me so.

Peter Mann, whose 10-year-old daughter Jaden suffered two fractured legs and shrapnel injuries, tweeted me after you returned this week to say:

‘She just came to Manchester children’s hospital to see Jaden.’

He enclosed a wonderful photo of you and his little girl laughing together.

‘Great picture,’ I replied. ‘Very glad Ariana is doing this.’

‘Thanks,’ he replied, ‘all the parents supported what you said last week. She came and she was lovely.’

I felt self-righteously vindicated when I read this.

But it was a short-lived sentiment.

The truth is that you have made me eat my cynical words in quite spectacular fashion.

You flew back to Manchester within two weeks of what must have been the worst day of your life.

You went to the hospitals and sat with your wounded fans like Jaden.

You joked with them, did endless selfies, sang a few songs and brought huge joy to so many shattered lives.

You had also spent the past week planning a huge fund-raising concert, persuading many of your pop superstar friends like Niall Horan, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber to join you on stage back in the very city where the attack happened.

And then, on the eve of the new show, there was another massive terror attack in Britain.

Many more people were murdered and maimed in a horrific series of attacks in London.

I’m sure you were traumatised by this news. Who wouldn’t have been?

You could have cancelled the event and gone home again. Nobody would have blamed you. Well, I might have done but so what?

Instead, you defiantly declared the show would go on.

I watched the concert last night and it was a staggeringly moving and inspiring event.

Watch Grande’s emotional rendition of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”:

Read more: Daily Mail