Taylor Swift has postponed her Saturday night Eras Tour show in Brazil due to the record heat wave hitting Rio de Janeiro.
The “Style” singer announced she would be delaying her performance in an Instagram Story on Saturday.
“I’m writing this from my dressing room at the stadium. The decision was made to postpone tonight’s show due to the extreme temperatures in Rio,” he explained. “The safety and well-being of my fans, fellow artists and team must and always will come first.”
The decision came a day after Ana Clara Benevides, a 23-year-old psychology student, fainted in the front row of Swift’s Friday concert in Rio. She was given 40 minutes of CPR at the scene before being taken to hospital, where she died, her friend Thiago Fernandes told the Brazilian newspaper. Folha de S. Paulo.
Concert organizer Time For Fun corroborated Fernandes’ account in an Instagram post, adding that Benevides died after receiving emergency medical care for an hour. No official cause of death has been reported.
According to Folha, the heat index at the Nilton Santos Stadium reached 140 degrees, causing 1,000 fans to faint, according to an unofficial count by firefighters. Concert videos presented Swift stopped the show twice to bring more water bottles to the crowd, and she herself threw bottles from the stage at distraught fans.
More than 60,000 people attended the concert and the venue had banned fans from bringing water bottles inside. Temperatures in Rio had been rising all week: On Tuesday, the heat index reached 137 degrees, the highest ever recorded in Rio.
Time For Fun also announced that Saturday’s show will be rescheduled to November 20 and that Sunday’s show will continue as originally planned. Swift is also scheduled to perform three shows in São Paulo from November 24 to 26.
On Friday night, Swift addressed Benevides’ death on her Instagram Story.
“I can’t believe I’m writing these words, but with a broken heart I say we lost a fan tonight before my show. “I can’t even express how devastated I am by this,” she shared in a handwritten note. “There is very little information I have other than the fact that she was incredibly beautiful and too young. I won’t be able to talk about this from the stage because I feel overwhelmed with grief even when I try to talk about it. I want to say now that I am deeply sorry for this loss and my broken heart goes out to her family and friends. This is the last thing I thought would happen when we decided to take this tour to Brazil.”
In response to Benevides’ death, fans started a petition, which had surpassed 200,000 signatures by Saturday morning, to create a law that would provide free water everywhere in Brazil. Flávio Dino, Minister of Justice of Brazil, tweeted Personal water bottles will be allowed into concert venues on Saturday morning, and promoters presenting shows with “high heat exposure” will be required to provide accessible water stations within the venue.
Times staff writer Kenan Draughorne contributed to this report.
