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Taylor Swift delivered an incredible show to concertgoers on Friday, November 24, as she kicked off her last weekend in Brazil. The “Cruel Summer” singer dazzled on stage in São Paulo, despite still mourning her fan Ana Clara Benevides Machado, who died on November 17 before Swfit’s concert in Rio.
Swift, 33, debuted her song “Now That We Don’t Talk” during the dazzling Eras concert, per videos on X (formerly Twitter), marking the first time the 1989 bonus track was performed live for fans. More fan clips circulating on social media showed the “Snow on the Beach” songstress smiling and blowing kisses to fans while closing out her show.
The “Enchanted” singer has been “completely beside herself” after the 23-year-old fan’s death, a source told Us Weekly on November 21, adding that Swift “reached out” to Benevides Machado’s family.
On November 17, right before Swift took the stage to perform, Benevides Machado collapsed amid the extreme heat in the stadium and suffered from cardiac arrest. Medics attempted to resuscitate her, but she went into cardiac arrest a second time while on the way to the hospital and was pronounced dead before she could be revived. Swift released a heartfelt message shortly after about the tragic event.
“I can’t believe I’m writing these words, but it is with her shattered heart that I say we lost a fan earlier tonight before my show. I can’t even tell you how devastated I am by this,” the “All Too Well” artist wrote via Instagram. “There’s very little information I have other than the fact that she was so incredibly beautiful and far too young. I’m not going to be able to speak about this from stage because I feel overwhelmed by grief when I even try to talk about it. I want to say now I feel this loss deeply and my broken heart goes out to her family and friends. This is the last thing I ever thought would happen when we decided to bring this tour to Brazil.”
Although she did not address the student’s death on stage, she gave a moving and emotional performance of her song “Bigger Than the Whole Sky,” which some fans theorized was a quiet tribute to the late fan.
Benevides Machado’s father said his daughter was a “happy” and “intelligent” girl who was pursuing her psychology degree. He also emphasized concertgoer’s claims that they were not allowed to bring their own water bottles into the event.
“I want it to be determined whether they were in fact prohibited from bringing water, whether there was negligence in providing assistance,” he said to local newspaper Folha de S. Paulo in Portuguese, which was translated to English, per E! News. “I know that the singer was handing out water to her fans, and that is absurd for an event of this size. Nothing will bring my daughter back, but I hope that, if negligence is confirmed, someone will be punished, so that this doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
