Taylor Swift’s new “End of an Era” docuseries doesn’t shy away from her tour’s darker moments.
In episode one, Swift got emotional as she addressed the thwarted terrorist plot that led her to cancel her three scheduled Eras stops in Vienna in August 2024.
“We dodged a massacre situation,” Swift said, before expressing her fears about resuming the tour in London mere days after the threat.
Comparing her job of entertaining 60,000-plus-person crowds to that of an airplane pilot navigating turbulence while keeping passengers calm, Swift said that if she shows any signs of anxiety or alarm on stage, her fans might panic too.
A professional, she said, must “lock it up” and go on with the show.
During the same episode, Swift attempted to soothe her pre-concert jitters by unwinding backstage at Wembley Stadium with an audiobook and a check-in from her mom, Andrea.
Adding even more weight to the UK shows was the horrific July 2024 stabbing at a Swift-themed dance party in Southport, during which three young girls were killed and 10 people were injured.
Following the tragic attack, the singer reached out to the victims’ families to express her condolences and invite them to her London shows; in a scene from the doc, Swift fought back tears while preparing to greet her special guests.
As Page Six reported, two people were arrested in Vienna last August for planning an attack on one of Swift’s concerts in the Austrian city. She subsequently cancelled all three concerts in Vienna due to safety concerns.
Swift, 35, addressed the foiled terror plot weeks later, telling Swifties that the whole thing was “devastating.”
“The reason for the cancellations filled me with a new sense of fear, and a tremendous amount of guilt because so many people had planned on coming to those shows,” she wrote on Instagram on Aug. 21, 2024.
“But I was also so grateful to the authorities because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives.”
She also explained why it took her a few weeks to break her silence on the matter.
“Let me be very clear: I am not going to speak about something publicly if I think doing so might provoke those who would want to harm the fans who come to my shows,” Swift said.
“In cases like this one, ‘silence’ is actually showing restraint, and waiting to express yourself at a time when it’s right to,” she continued. “My priority was finishing our European tour safely, and it is with great relief that I can say we did that.”
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