A 23-year-old girl died on Friday night in Rio de Janeiro during Taylor Swift’s first concert in the city, on a day of extreme heat in which the temperature reached almost 40 degrees, almost 60 degrees. The fan, Ana Clara Benevides, a psychology student, began to feel unwell at the beginning of the recital. She fainted and was treated right there at a medical station, where they tried to revive her without success for 40 minutes. She was then taken by ambulance to a hospital, where she died of cardiorespiratory arrest. Hours before the second of the three concerts she has planned in the city began, she has decided to cancel it. “I am writing to you from my dressing room at the stadium. The decision has been to postpone tonight’s show due to the extreme temperatures in Rio,” Swift wrote on her Instagram account.
During Friday’s concert, there were also some restrictions on access with water bottles inside the stadium. The public in the stands had relative ease in buying water, despite the high prices, but the sellers could barely circulate on the track due to the crowds. The singer herself complained about the heat and she stopped the concert so that her team could distribute water to the fans who were in the front rows.
More than 60,000 people packed the Nilton Santos Olympic stadium, which due to the strong heat became a pressure cooker. Thousands of fans had spent the entire day in the sun queuing to secure a good spot. The concert began at night, but the temperatures did not let up. According to her friend who accompanied her, Daniele Menin, the university student fainted in the second song, Cruel summer (Cruel summer, in Spanish). Her friends associated her death with the heat, but at the moment there is no official information about the condition that caused the student’s death.
These days Brazil is experiencing a heat wave that has caused a state of emergency in more than 1,400 cities, a situation aggravated by the effects of El Niño and global warming. In Rio, the high humidity means that the actual thermal sensation has reached peaks of 58 degrees. During Swift’s concert, which lasted three and a half hours, hundreds of people had to be treated for dehydration and fainting. The organization has not yet provided a balance of medical care provided. According to the local press, there were close to 1,000.
Shortly after the show, the singer reported the death of her follower through her social networks: “I can’t believe I’m writing these words, but with a broken heart I say that we lost a fan tonight.” The American confessed to being “devastated” and warned that she will not talk about the issue in the upcoming concerts that she still has ahead of her in Brazil. “Pain overcomes me every time I try to talk about this. I want to say that I feel this loss deeply and my broken heart goes out to her family and friends. “This is the last thing I thought could happen when we decided to bring this tour to Brazil.”
The death of the fan is generating a wave of criticism of the promoter company, T4F, which in a brief statement regretted the death, but did not announce preventive measures for the upcoming concerts. The Government, through the Minister of Justice, Flávio Dino, promised an investigation into the difficulty in accessing water and the publication of emergency regulations to guarantee that the public can properly hydrate at this type of shows. “It is unacceptable that people suffer, faint and even die due to lack of access to water,” he posted on X, formerly Twitter. The mayor of Rio, Eduardo Paes, announced that he will hold the production accountable, and promised an increase in brigade members and ambulances at the next concerts, for which high temperatures are also planned.
The singer still has two more concerts ahead of her The Eras Tour in Rio, on Saturday and Sunday. After a short break, on November 24 and 26 she will take her show to São Paulo. All events sold out long ago. His first appearance in Brazil after 11 years of absence unleashed the madness of his followers, who even mobilized to project a message of welcome to Brazil in his honor on the statue of Christ the Redeemer. The priest responsible for the monument agreed in exchange for the fans managing to collect water and food for those most in need. They surpassed the challenge with flying colors and Swift said on stage that it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her.
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