Taylor Swift postpones her show in Rio due to the heat
Taylor Swift has postponed the second night of her Eras Tour in Rio de Janeiro due to high temperatures, one day after a fan died at her concert.
“I’m writing this from the stadium locker room. The decision has been made to postpone tonight’s show due to the extreme temperatures in Rio. The safety and well-being of my fans,” Swift wrote in a post on her Instagram Story. My fellow artists and crew should and will always come first.”
Hundreds of fans had already begun to fill the stadium. Water bottles were distributed along the checkpoint. Power fans have also been placed in the hallways. The mayor said he ordered the early arrival of medical and emergency crews.
There was an excessive heat warning for Rio on Saturday when temperatures reached 92.
On Friday, Ana Clara Benevides Machado — a 23-year-old fan who attended the first night of the concert — was taken to hospital and pronounced dead during an extreme heat wave warning. The cause of Benevides Machado’s death has not been announced, but local media reports from Brazil said she had suffered a cardiac arrest.
“I can’t believe I’m writing these words, but it is with a broken heart to say that we lost a fan earlier the night before my show,” Swift posted in an Instagram message several hours after the show. “I can’t even tell you how sad I am about this. There is very little information I have other than the fact that she was so beautiful and so young. I wouldn’t be able to talk about this from the stage because I get so sad when I try to talk about it. I want to say now that I feel this loss deeply and my heart goes out to her family and friends. “This is the last thing I thought would happen when we decided to bring this tour to Brazil.”
Swift stopped her first show in Rio de Janeiro on Friday to make sure fans had water and threw a water bottle into the audience two afternoons later, as temperatures soared to nearly 100 degrees on Friday and an excessive heat warning was issued.
“There are people who need water here, maybe 30, 35, 40 feet away,” she said during Evermore’s set, pointing to a floor section of the crowd. “So whoever is responsible for giving them that, just make sure it happens. Can I get an indication that you know where they are?”
“Do you see the phones?” She was heard speaking to her team off stage as the audience chanted: “Water, water, water, water.”
The Instagram of the show’s producer @t4f sent out a post saying that the concert has been postponed to Monday. Swift has another concert in Rio scheduled for Sunday.
A Taylor Swift fan dies at the Rio show The mayor of Rio called for providing water for upcoming shows and taking other measures to mitigate the heat.
Follow USA TODAY Network’s Taylor Swift correspondent Brian West on Instagram, TikTok, and X as @BryanWestTV.
