Selena Gomez Set to Host 'Vax Live: The Concert to Reunite the World'

Kathryn Milewski -

Global Citizen announced it will host a livestream concert to inspire people to get the COVID-19 vaccine while making it more available worldwide. Selena Gomez is set to host the event, which will premiere on May 8.

Vax Live: The Concert to Reunite the World will encourage philanthropists and corporations to give "dollars-for-doses" in efforts to vaccinate more than 27 million frontline healthcare workers. The global broadcast will also encourage changemakers to tap world leaders so that the vaccine can get distributed more equitably.

"By June, the U.S. government will have 45 million doses in excess of their entire population being vaccinated just sitting there in cold storage and warehouses," CEO of Global Citizen Hugh Evans said. "That seems absolutely insane for something that's for the common good to be sitting in cold storage."

As Evans described it, Vax Live will be the first internationally televised effort to lobby world leaders to help achieve fairer vaccine distribution. The event also intends to raise pledges for the billions of dollars needed to send 2 billion vaccine doses, in addition to COVID-19 tests, to the world's poorest countries by the end of 2021.


Hugh Evans explained why Global Citizen chose Selena Gomez to host. "Gomez is obviously an incredible leader in her own right," he said. "She has one of the largest social followings on the planet, and she also is a true leader among young people and in the Latinx community."

"I’m honored to be hosting 'Vax Live: The Concert to Reunite the World,'" Gomez said in a press statement. "This is a historic moment to encourage people around the world to take the COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available to them, call on world leaders to share vaccine doses equitably and to bring people together for a night of music in a way that hasn’t felt possible in the past year. I can’t wait to be a part of it."

Besides Selena Gomez hosting the event, Vax Live will feature musical performances from Eddie Vedder, Foo Fighters, J Balvin, and H.E.R. Jennifer Lopez will headline the concert, which will be pre-taped in Los Angeles's SoFi Stadium.

Vax Live: The Concert to Reunite the World will air on TV and start livestreaming Saturday, May 8 at 8pm ET on ABC, ABC News Live, CBS, YouTube, iHeartMedia broadcast radio stations, and the iHeartRadio App. It will air on FOX at 11pm ET the same day.

YouTube will stream a 90-minute extended version of Vax Live on the Global Citizen channel. It will include additional performances and appearances by NCT 127 and YouTube creators Daniel El Travieso, Kati Morton, ShootforLove, Thembe Mahlaba, and The Try Guys.


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Article Image: Selena Gomez at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. (arp via DepositPhotos.)