St. Louis, Missouri rapper Nelly spoke to MTV about the reason behind him pulling kidnap victim Amanda Berry onstage with him just one day after the Ohio natives kidnapper Ariel Castro, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole plus 1,000 years.

Amanda was kidnapped along with three other woman almost a decade ago and escaped her captor back in May of 2013. Nelly was performing a show in Cleveland, Ohio and saw the young woman shortly before his performance.

Nelly stated: “I had a chance to meet and greet fans before the show and she was there with her family and friends. After we took pictures we had a chance to sit down and talk, and I told her that she and her family were more than welcome to come up on the side of the stage and they did.”

Nelly also said that he was unaware that bringing Amanda on stage would garner so much media attention and he purly just wanted to “show some love”.

“I just wanted Cleveland to know that we were proud of her and that the strength and the pulse of the city is built around the people,” he said. “To see her survive that, I thought it was amazing and it inspired me to do almost anything.”

Video footage of the event shows Nelly giving a shout out to Amanda during his performance at RoverFest. Nelly then goes into singing his hit song “Just A Dream”

You can view the video below.

By Mark A. Macpherson
@the541guy