Madonna puts on the show of her life as she sings to a record 1.6 million fans on Copacabana beach.

Her free concert in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, ended her Celebration tour – which started in London in October – and cemented the 65-year-old as the Queen of Pop.

Launching the two-hour set at 10.37pm, 50 minutes late, she told the mammoth crowd: “Here we are in the most beautiful place in the world.”

Huge cheers rose from the tightly packed audience as she began with Nothing Really Matters before going on to other hits including Like A Prayer, Vogue and Material Girl.

No other female artist has performed to such a huge audience, with Madonna’s previous biggest gig being for 130,000 fans in 1987 in Paris. Rod Stewart is believed to have had the biggest ever crowd – more than 3.5million people at Copacabana beach in 1994.

Madonna’s concert boosted the local economy by an estimated £46million, with 170 extra flights landing at
Rio’s international airport
last week.

Many fans dressed up, including Rio resident Rosemary de Oliveira Bohrer, 69, who wore a gold-coloured cone bra and called Madonna “my idol, my diva, my pop queen”.