Madonna performed to her largest ever live audience on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Saturday night.
On the final night of her career-spanning Celebration Tour, she performed a free concert on Rio's famous beach, with the number in attendance reaching 1.6 million, according to the city's tourism agency.
She began the show telling the crowd, “Here we are in the most beautiful place in the world. This place is magic,” and launching into her 1998 hit 'Nothing Really Matters'.
"I was honestly so impressed at the size of the concert, 1.6 million people of all places came to celebrate with her and she did not disappoint," one Montrealer that was at the show shared with us. "Just a few years earlier, people were protesting against gay rights in the exact same location, and she brought everyone together to celebrate love and equality. It was so moving."
Source: Kevin Mazur / Contributor / Getty Images Entertainment / Getty Images
She performed many of her hits, sparking huge singalongs to Like a Virgin and Like a Prayer. She was also joined on stage by Brazilian artists Anitta and Pabilo Vittar.
Madonna's gig beat the 1.2 million the Rolling Stones performed there to in 2006, but was short of the estimated record 4 million Rod Stewart played to in 1994.
Her previous largest live concert crowd was 130,000 fans in Paris, France in 1987.
