With an alleged extremist arrested for planning an attack at one of her concerts in Vienna, Australia this weekend, Taylor Swift almost saw her “biggest fear” come true.
This week, a 19-year-old who had pledged loyalty to the Islamic State was arrested for planning an attack at one of Swift’s sold-out shows over the weekend resulting in the cancelation of all three of her concerts in the city. Years ago, Swift expressed her fear about something like this happening.
In the years following the 2017 mass shooting at a Las Vegas music festival that killed 60 – the deadliest shooting by a lone gunman in the United States to date – Swift expressed that it was her “biggest fear” that a similar attack could take place at her concert.
“After the Manchester Arena bombing and the Vegas concert shooting, I was completely terrified to go on tour this time because I didn’t know how we were going to keep 3 million fans safe over seven months,” Swift wrote in a 2019 essay for Elle Magazine
“There was a tremendous amount of planning, expense, and effort put into keeping my fans safe.”
Swift had been so afraid of an attack like the one in Las Vegas that she said she began carrying around emergency first-aid equipment like bandage dressing for gunshot or stab wounds.
Obviously, the threat was thwarted by authorities and the concerts have since been canceled. But her biggest fear nearly materialized.
[CNN]
