‘I have a hard time explaining it,’ said Taylor Swift as she broke down in tears, reflecting on the victims of the Southport stabbings.
Three children died, and five were left critically injured after the attack carried out by Axel Rudakubana, 18, at a Taylor-themed dance party in Liverpool last year.
He was jailed for at least 52 years for the deaths of Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and nine-year-old Alice Dasilva Aguiar.
Within 15 minutes of her new docuseries, The End of an Era, for Disney Plus, the singer reflected on the horrific attacks, clearly still emotional.
‘We’re in London at my hotel and basically it’s just kind of a weird feeling going into these last five shows in Europe,’ Taylor, 35, shared.
‘We’ve done 128 shows so far, but this is the first where I feel like I’m skating on thin ice or something’.
She addressed the ‘series of very violent, scary’ incidents that had struck the Eras Tour, which ran from March 2023 to December 2024.
On August 7, 2024, her shows in Vienna were cancelled over a terror threat, with Taylor putting it plainly: ‘We dodged a massacre situation.’
The shows were never rescheduled, and at the time the Evermore singer said she felt ‘tremendous guilt’ and a ‘new sense of fear’.
However, it was when she spoke about Southport that the usually composed popstar began to falter.
‘There was this horrible attack in Liverpool at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party. and it was little kids that…’ she trailed off, unable to continue.
She confirmed through tears that some of the victims’ families were set to meet her at the London show that night.
‘When I meet them, I’m not gonna do this, I’m gonna be smiling,’ Taylor added, wiping away the tears.
At the time, photos appeared online of Taylor posing with the families for a series of snaps, beaming as she hugged two youngsters who were dressed in Red Era t-shirts.
Her showgirl persona shattered after the meeting as she wept in the dressing room, with her three-hour show still to perform.
‘I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I know you helped them,’ said mum Andrea, who sat with her crying.
Throughout the episode, Taylor repeatedly said how she ‘just needed to get through’ the August 17 gig and be strong for her fans.
Ever one for a metaphor, she compared the Eras Tour to landing a plane as a pilot and not revealing any turbulence they may be experiencing.
She chose to bring out Ed Sheeran as a surprise guest at that show, singing Everything Has Changed, saying the fans needed a ‘pick me up’.
‘From a mental standpoint, I do live in a reality that’s unreal a lot of the time,’ Taylor said. ‘But I need to be able to handle all the feelings and then perk up and perform.’
Taylor was also comforted over the phone by her boyfriend (now fiancé), Travis Kelce, who said he wished he could be there to support her.
Travis did show up a few shows later, famously carrying her off stage during the Tortured Poets Department section of the show.
The first two episodes of Taylor Swift’s The End of an Era docuseries are streaming now on Disney Plus.
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