Taylor Swift has spoken for the first time about the three Vienna shows on her blockbuster Eras tour that were cancelled earlier this month after a foiled terror attack, saying she felt “a new sense of fear” and a “tremendous amount of guilt”.
The planned terror attack was uncovered by Austrian authorities who eventually arrested three teenaged suspects – aged 17, 18 and 19 – for allegedly planning an Islamist attack in the Vienna region, with Swift’s shows being the “focus” of the plot.
The 19-year-old suspect intended “either today or tomorrow to kill himself and a large crowd of people”, said the head of state protection and intelligence at the Austrian interior ministry, Omar Haijawi-Pirchner.
The police said the suspect had pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group “in recent weeks” and had become radicalised on the internet. Bomb chemicals were seized at his house.
In an Instagram post on Wednesday night celebrating the end of the tour’s European leg, which concluded with five London shows this past week, Swift shared her “rollercoaster of emotions”.
“Having our Vienna shows cancelled was devastating,” she wrote. “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. But I was also so grateful to the authorities because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives.”
The singer thanked her fans for their “love and unity” and said all her energy went into protecting “the nearly half a million people I had coming to see the shows in London” in the aftermath of the Vienna cancellations.
“My team and I worked hand in hand with stadium staff and British authorities every day in pursuit of that goal, and I want to thank them for everything they did for us,” Swift wrote. “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.”
The Instagram post was the first Swift had shared since the Vienna incident. She acknowledged her silence in the intervening weeks, calling her silence a form of “showing restraint, and waiting to express yourself at a time when it’s right to”.
“My priority was finishing our European tour safely, and it is with great relief that I can say we did that,” she said.
Swift’s Vienna shows were planned for 8 to 10 August at the Ernst Happel stadium. Initially authorities said they could continue with additional security, but the concerts were later scrapped owing to an “abstract danger”, according to Vienna police chief Gerhard Purstl.
Swift will return to North America in November and December for a string of Canadian shows that will conclude the Eras tour – a mammoth spectacle that has become the highest grossing tour in history, generating well over $US1bn as well as seismic activity on more than one occasion.
