Taylor Swift was welcomed to Brazil on Thursday by a projection that made the world-famous Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro seem as if it had been clad in a T-shirt just like the one she wore in her “You Belong With Me” music video and was adorned with the names of Brazilian states and symbols from her songs.
However tragedy and hassle have adopted that heat welcome.
A fan died within the sweltering warmth at Friday night time’s present in Rio de Janeiro. On the eleventh hour, Swift postponed her Saturday present till Monday, to the dismay of 1000’s of followers who had already began filling the stadium. The army police mentioned a fan who was in Rio de Janeiro for the recurrently scheduled live performance on Sunday was stabbed to dying earlier that morning.
The fatalities and different issues had been a departure from the triumphant first leg of Swift’s Eras Tour, a career-spanning manufacturing that broke data in North America. Because the tour’s second present in Rio de Janeiro approached on Sunday night time, followers grappled with ruined journey plans, excessive warmth and disappointment.
Anne Di Motta, 30, a psychologist in São Paulo, Brazil, was speculated to attend the Saturday night time present and mentioned she could be returning house earlier than the rescheduled live performance on Monday as a result of she needed to work.
“I spent the final 17 years ready for the chance to go, to meet my teenage dream of assembly somebody I’ve identified since her first single,” Di Motta mentioned. “And to be sitting three hours in a chair, fully moist with sweat, having to beat a number of private challenges to be there fully alone, to obtain the information that it was canceled — it was fully devastating.”
The Saturday night time present was postponed due to the acute temperatures, Swift mentioned in an Instagram submit hours earlier than the live performance was supposed to start at an open-air soccer stadium. “The security and well-being of my followers, fellow performers and crew has to and at all times will come first,” she mentioned.
At that time, 1000’s of followers had traveled to see Swift, enduring the height of the day’s warmth, which reached 93 levels Fahrenheit, or 34 levels Celsius, earlier than they had been requested to go away the venue. Reuters reported that the warmth index, a measure of how sizzling it feels when humidity and different elements are thought of together with the temperature, reached 59.7 levels Celsius, or 139.5 levels Fahrenheit, in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday, a file.
A consultant for Swift didn’t instantly reply to emailed questions concerning the postponement of the Saturday present.
The Rio exhibits got here after Swift carried out in Argentina, the primary cease on the Eras Tour exterior North America. She needed to transfer one present in Buenos Aires due to a storm. She is scheduled to carry out in São Paulo on Nov. 24, Nov. 25 and Nov. 26, earlier than touring subsequent yr to cities throughout South America, Asia, Australia and Europe.
Julia Alvarenga, a social media influencer, was in the stadium when the live performance was postponed and mentioned in a video shared widely online that she had arrived for the present at 11 a.m. “Taylor Swift, I’m carrying a geriatric diaper that doesn’t even shut on me,” Alvarenga mentioned.
“I purchased water, I purchased a fan, everyone seems to be crying, screaming, so that you present up on this stage!” Alvarenga mentioned.
Gabriela Werner, 24, a advertising and marketing analyst, purchased tickets for every present in Rio and two in São Paulo, and mentioned she began getting ready for the warmth three months in the past by understanding in a health club with out air con in the midst of the day. She lives in Porto Alegre, about 700 miles southwest of Rio.
Whereas ready in line for Sunday night time’s live performance, Werner mentioned the ambiance was a lot calmer than that of the Friday present. “It’s not so sizzling, and everybody’s form of holding again due to the nights earlier than and all the things that occurred,” she mentioned.
She didn’t anticipate Swift to return to Brazil. “I’m positive she’s traumatized,” Werner mentioned.
Werner, like many different followers, blamed the Brazilian firm that organized the present, Time for Enjoyable, for the issues. Wadih Damous, the pinnacle of Brazil’s client safety company, mentioned the federal government would examine Time for Enjoyable. The corporate mentioned on Saturday that it will add employees, present free water and permit followers to enter the stadium with water and meals.
As crowds left the stadium on Saturday night time, there have been reviews of unrest close to the positioning, the police mentioned.
After Matheus Duarte, 24, a warehouse employee, left the stadium and went to a shopping center close by, he noticed folks yelling that there was a raid.
“I don’t actually know if it actually occurred, however I noticed determined folks operating,” Duarte mentioned. “And as quickly as I noticed it, I began operating alongside and hid in a carpark.”
On Sunday, the army police mentioned there had been no reviews of robberies or muggings the night time earlier than. However earlier than the live performance on Sunday, a fan in Rio de Janeiro for the live performance was stabbed to dying after an tried theft in Copacabana, the well-known beachside strip, the army police mentioned. Two males had been arrested, they mentioned. The fan, Gabriel Mongenot Santana Milhomem Santos, was with associates when he was stabbed, the civil police mentioned.
Throughout Friday’s present, Ana Clara Benevides, 23, died after dropping consciousness, officers mentioned. She was pronounced useless of cardiac arrest after being taken to a hospital, based on metropolis officers and the Brazilian firm that organized Swift’s present, Time for Enjoyable.
Benevides, a psychology scholar, had traveled from Rondonópolis, which is about 880 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro, for the live performance, O Globo reported. Her good friend Emiliane Félix, 22, informed O Globo that Benevides had been sending her associates photographs of her outfits for the live performance “for over a month.”
On X, the social media platform previously often known as Twitter, Benevides shared her pleasure concerning the live performance, writing on Nov. 7, “I don’t know what my objective in life might be after I see Taylor.”
Followers on the live performance on Friday complained a couple of lack of water and excessive warmth. The warmth index, reached 139 levels Fahrenheit, a file for Rio.
In a web-based submit, Swift mentioned she was “devastated” by her fan’s dying. “I’m not going to have the ability to talk about this from stage as a result of I really feel overwhelmed by grief once I even attempt to discuss it,” she mentioned.
Luiza Guimarães, 33, an economist, mentioned that she was upset it took so lengthy for Saturday’s present to be canceled as a result of some followers had been already uncertain if it will go on after Benevides’s dying and had been fearful concerning the warmth. “Actually, the manufacturing of the present was very reckless and all the things was very poorly managed,” she mentioned.
Guimarães mentioned that she doesn’t blame Swift for the issues and that she thought the musician should be “very, very discouraged.”
Reporting was contributed by Genevieve Glatsky in Rio de Janeiro and Jack Nicas in Buenos Aires.
