Within the first hour of upload, the song did numbers no one saw coming. Spotify showed 1.8 million streams in sixty minutes. Apple Music hit 900,000. Audiomack crossed 2.4 million plays. YouTube views for the full performance clip hit 3.6 million in the first hour.
By the second hour, the song had entered global trending charts, sitting at #7 worldwide and #1 in several countries, including the U.S. and Canada.
Clips from the performance spread like wildfire. TikTok edits, fan reactions, soldiers saluting, families crying. Everyone had something to say. Big music pages that usually ignored the competition began reposting it with catchy lines like:
> "They cut him. We found the full performance."
"This wasn't just a performance. It was a message."
"They tried to silence him. The world made him louder."
People shared the link with short captions. One example caption that went viral read:
> "Full, uncut performance. Watch. Then tell me why they cut this from TV."
