Taylor Swift postponed her second of two scheduled reveals in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday, after a 23-year-old fan died throughout the earlier evening’s present.
“I’m penning this from my dressing room within the stadium,” the singer stated in a handwritten word posted on her Instagram web page. “The choice has been made to postpone tonight’s present as a result of excessive temperatures in Rio.
“The protection and properly being of my followers, fellow performers, and crew has to and at all times will come first.”
The reason for loss of life for Ana Clara Benevides Machado, the younger lady who sought medical consideration at Nilton Santos Olympic Stadium throughout Friday’s present, has not but been introduced.
The workplace of Rio’s public prosecutor opened a prison investigation and stated Benevides’ physique was being examined.
Benevides’ loss of life shook many individuals in Brazil. She had taken her first flight ever to journey from the nation’s centre-west area to Rio to see her favorite musician. She additionally created a WhatsApp group to maintain her household up to date, sending photographs and movies each step of the way in which, members of the family instructed on-line information web site G1.
Followers and politicians reacted to her loss of life with outrage, speculating it was linked to excessive warmth.
Concertgoers complained they weren’t allowed to take water into the stadium regardless of the stifling climate. As temperatures continued to rise on Saturday, and with two extra reveals to go on the time, federal authorities introduced that free water would now be made accessible at concert events and different giant occasions.
Certainly one of Benevides’ associates, who additionally went to the live performance, instructed native retailers they’d each been given water whereas ready to enter the stadium.
In a earlier assertion shared on her social media Saturday morning, Taylor stated she had a “shattered coronary heart” following Benevides’ loss of life.
“There’s little or no data I’ve aside from the truth that she was so extremely lovely and much too younger,” the singer wrote of the younger lady.
Buda Mendes/TAS23 through Getty Photos
The present’s organiser, Time4Fun, stated on Instagram that paramedics attended to Benevides after she reported feeling unwell.
She was taken to a first-aid centre after which to a hospital, the place she died an hour later, the assertion from the Brazilian dwell leisure firm stated.
Followers who attended the Friday present claimed they weren’t allowed to convey water bottles into the stadium, regardless that Rio and most of Brazil have had record-breaking temperatures this week amid a harmful and lasting warmth wave. The daytime excessive in Rio on Friday was 39.1 levels Celsius (102.4 levels Fahrenheit), however felt a lot hotter.
Obvious temperature — a mix of temperature and humidity — hit 59 C (138 F) Friday morning in Rio, the very best index ever recorded there.
Elizabeth Morin, 26, who not too long ago moved to Rio from Los Angeles, described “sauna-like” circumstances contained in the stadium.
“It was extraordinarily sizzling. My hair obtained so moist from sweat as quickly as I got here in,” she stated. “There was some extent at which I needed to test my respiration to verify I wasn’t going to cross out.”
Morin stated she drank loads of water however noticed “an excellent quantity of individuals trying distressed” and others “yelling for water”. She stated she was capable of get water from the sidelines of the realm she was standing in, however that water was lots more durable to entry from different elements of the stadium, “particularly when you had been involved about dropping your particular place.”
Throughout the present, Taylor paused her efficiency and requested from the stage for water to be dropped at a gaggle of people that had efficiently caught the singer’s consideration, in keeping with Morin.
“They had been holding up their telephones saying ‘We want water,’” she recalled.
Two different concertgoers interviewed by The Related Press stated they witnessed individuals feeling unwell from the warmth throughout the present.
On her strategy to Rio, Benevides despatched a video to members of the family that was broadcast by TV channel Globo Information, telling them: “Mum, take a look at the aircraft, it’s shifting. Mum, I’m on the aircraft. I’m joyful!”
Then, earlier than the live performance,Benevides posted a video of herself on Instagram carrying a Taylor Swift T-shirt and friendship bracelets, searching for shade beneath an umbrella whereas ready in line to enter the stadium.
Like her, 1000’s of followers waited hours within the solar earlier than being allowed inside.
She instructed her followers whereas fanning her face that she’d arrived at 11am — the present started round 7.30pm — and was “nonetheless within the mess”.
Benevides’ buddy, Daniele Menin, who attended the live performance along with her, instructed on-line information web site G1 that her buddy handed out in the beginning of the live performance, as Taylor carried out her second music, Merciless Summer season.
“We at all times stated that when (Taylor Swift) got here to Brazil we might discover a strategy to go. The ticket was very costly, however we nonetheless discovered a manner,” Menin instructed G1.
Justice Minister Flávio Dino stated on X, previously referred to as Twitter, that going ahead in Brazil, “water bottles for private use, in appropriate materials, will likely be allowed” at concert events and festivals and that present producers should present free and simply accessible consuming water.
Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes wrote on X that the “lack of a younger lady’s life … is unacceptable” and demanded extra brigades and ambulances at future reveals.
Earlier than suspending the live performance, Taylor wrote on Instagram that she wouldn’t handle the loss of life from stage “as a result of I really feel overwhelmed by grief after I even attempt to speak about it”.
“I wish to say now I really feel this loss deeply and my damaged coronary heart goes out to her household and associates,” she stated.