RIO DE JANEIRO — A 23-year-old Taylor Swift fan died on the singer’s Eras Tour live performance in Rio de Janeiro Friday night time, based on a press release from the present’s organizers in Brazil. Each Swifties and politicians reacted to the information with outrage.
Whereas a reason for demise for Ana Clara Benevides Machado has not been introduced, followers complained they weren’t allowed to take water into Nilton Santos Olympic Stadium regardless of hovering temperatures.
A gaggle launched a web based petition Saturday morning calling for a “Benevides Regulation” to “make water in occasions necessary.”
The petition garnered greater than 150,000 signatures in just some hours. Federal authorities introduced that free water can be made accessible in any respect future concert events.
In a handwritten observe shared on her social media, Swift stated she had a “shattered coronary heart.”
“There’s little or no info I’ve apart from the truth that she was so extremely stunning and much too younger,” the singer wrote of the younger lady.
The present’s organizer, Time4Fun, stated on Instagram that paramedics attended to Benevides after she reported feeling unwell. She was taken to a first-aid heart after which to a hospital, the place she died an hour later, the assertion from the Brazilian reside leisure firm stated.
Live performance-goers stated they weren’t allowed to deliver water bottles into the stadium although 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 it felt a lot hotter.
Elizabeth Morin, 26, who lately moved to Rio from Los Angeles, described “sauna-like” situations contained in the stadium.
“It was extraordinarily scorching. My hair bought so moist from sweat as quickly as I got here in,” she stated. “There was a degree 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 “ quantity of individuals wanting distressed” and others “yelling for water.” She stated she was in a position to get water from the sidelines of the world she was standing in, however that water was so much tougher to entry from different components of the stadium, “particularly for those who have been involved about shedding your particular place.”
Through the present, Swift 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, based on Morin.
“They have been holding up their telephones saying ‘We’d like water,’” she recalled.
Justice Minister Flávio Dino stated on X that the ministry would implement “emergency guidelines” in response to the scenario. He later introduced that “water bottles for private use, in appropriate materials, will probably be allowed” at concert events and different occasions and that present producers should present free and simply accessible ingesting water.
Earlier than the present, Benevides posted a video of herself on Instgram sporting a Taylor Swift T-shirt and ready in line to enter the stadium whereas in search of shade below an umbrella. 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 11 a.m. — the present started round 7:30 p.m. — and was “nonetheless within the mess.”
Benevides’ buddy, Daniele Menin, who attended the live performance together with her, instructed on-line information website G1 that her buddy handed out in the beginning of the live performance, as Swift carried out her second tune, “Merciless Summer time.”
“We all the time stated that when (Taylor Swift) got here to Brazil we might discover a option to go. The ticket was very costly, however we nonetheless discovered a approach”, Menin instructed G1.
Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes stated on X the “lack of a younger lady’s life … is unacceptable.”
Whereas authorities are investigating the circumstances of the demise, Paes wrote, the municipality will demand Saturday that the present’s manufacturing firm present new water distribution factors, extra brigades and ambulances, and advance entrance to the present by one hour.
Swift has two extra exhibits scheduled in Rio, one on Saturday and one on Sunday.
“I am not going to have the ability to discuss this from stage as a result of I really feel overwhelmed by grief after I even attempt to discuss it,” she wrote. “I need to say now I really feel this loss deeply and my damaged coronary heart goes out to her household and mates.”
