Taylor Swift Shares Her Reaction To The Eras Tour Terrorist Threats
In her docuseries, the pop star is finally revealing the toll it took on her.
Over a year after a devastating attack on her fans and a terrorist threat on her global Eras Tour, Taylor Swift is finally opening up about the darkest patch of an otherwise joyful time period. In the first episode of her End of an Era docuseries, Swift reveals that she was originally meant to begin filming during her August 2024 tour dates in Vienna, Germany. But, not only were those dates canceled due to a planned terror strike, but around the same time, a fan event in Southport, England was targeted by a stabber who killed three children and injured nine more.
Much of the docuseries’ premiere revolves around Swift trying to grapple with putting on her cheery concert after such horrific acts of violence. “Never in my life did I think we would have a terrorist plot,” Swift said as she prepared for her Aug. 15 show in London. “We've done 128 shows so far, but this is the first one where I feel like we're skating on thin ice. We've had a series of very violent, scary things happen to the tour. Like, we dodged a massacre situation. And so, I've just been kind of all over the place. There was this horrible attack in Liverpool at this Taylor Swift-themed dance party, and it was little kids...”
Before she could finish her thought, Swift devolved into tears. But she realized she had to collect herself quickly, since she was about to meet the families affected by the Southport attack.
“I’m going to meet some of these families today, and put on a pop concert, you know?” she said.
“It's going to be fine, because when I meet them I'm not going to do this. I'm going to be smiling,” Swift said, wiping her tears away. The sentiment led Swift to muse about the extreme pressure to keep composure while she’s on the Eras Tour stage.
“Any of this gets out of the way before you ever go upstage. You lock it off for three and a half hours,” Swift said. “They don’t have to worry about you. It’s like you’re a pilot flying the plane. And if you were like, ‘Oh, there’s turbulence up ahead; I don’t know if we’re actually gonna land in Dallas; I’m gonna try hard, but I don’t know if I can actually figure out how to land through this turbulence,’ everyone on the plane’s gonna freak out. You just have to have a calm, cool, collected tone of, ‘We will be landing in Dallas at 6:05 p.m. Got a little turbulence up ahead, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. Just keep your seat belts fastened and welcome to the Eras Tour.’”
Later in the episode, Swift confessed her nerves for the first Wembley Stadium show to her mom. “I've been performing for 20 years. From a mental standpoint, being afraid something's going to happen to your fans at any moment, this is a new challenge,” Swift said. “I'm trying to calm down. I'm having a very physical reaction to my nerves. I just have to get this first show over with.”
