Taylor Swift breaks down in Eras documentary over Southport attack

LONDON (AFP): US pop star Taylor Swift breaks down in tears in her documentary released Friday as she recalls the murder of three girls in a stabbing spree in northern England at a dance class themed around her music.

Backstage footage from the Eras Tour showed the musician crying before meeting the families of victims of the Southport attack, which sparked Britain’s worst anti-migrant riots in decades.

Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, were killed by teenager Axel Rudakubana during the July 2024 rampage in which 10 others were wounded, prompting an outpouring of grief in the UK and from Swift’s fans around the world.

“There was a horrible attack … at a Taylor Swift themed dance party,” Swift says in the documentary titled “The End of an Era”, wiping away tears ahead of her sold-out concert at London’s Wembley Stadium in August.

“It’s going to be fine, because when I meet them, I’m not going to do this. I swear to God, I’m not going to do this,” she said, before meeting survivors and families of the victims.

After the meeting, Swift is shown crying to her mother backstage, who comforts her.

“From a mental standpoint, I just do live in a reality that’s very unreal a lot of the time,” Swift says in the Disney+ documentary.

“But it’s my job to kind of be able to handle all these feelings and then perk up immediately to perform. That’s just the way it’s got to be.”

The London concert was also Swift’s return to the stage after her three Vienna shows were cancelled due to a failed Islamic State-inspired bomb plot.

“Being afraid that something is going to happen to your fans is new,” the BBC quoted Swift saying at the documentary’s New York premiere.

Rudakubana was jailed for life in January for his knife rampage.