Taylor Swift met families of the Southport attack victims and broke down in tears after the encounter, a new TV documentary reveals.
The series, filmed while she was on tour, also includes footage of the American popstar reflecting on the stabbings that saw three children killed when they attended a dance and yoga workshop themed around her music.
Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, all died in the attacks on 29 July last year, in Southport, Lancashire.
Footage – from her new six-part Disney+ docuseries, “The End of an Era.” – shows Swift unable to continue talking about the tragedy and breaking down after explaining that “it was little kids”.
She later tries to continue, saying how she is “going to meet some of these families [affected by the Southport attack] tonight”.
The star then lets out an incredulous half-laugh as she realises that she will be trying to put on a happy and joyful pop concert shortly after having such heart-breaking encounters.
Swift then half chides half motivates herself to “lock it off,” and get into pop performer mode.
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She compares it to being a pilot needing to adopt a “calm, cool, collected” demeanour.
Swift later met privately with families of the Southport victims.
That meeting is not on camera, but the aftermath is. It shows the star in tears, placing her hand on a wall for support and being comforted by her mother.
The footage was filmed as Swift prepared for concerts in London in August 2024, her first performances since three Vienna dates were cancelled over an apparent plot to launch an attack on the shows.
She admits that “being afraid something is going to happen” to her audience at a show was a new challenge.
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At the time of the Southport attack, Swift said she was “completely in shock” over the violence.
The popstar also revealed when talking to fellow singer Ed Sheeran, that she felt “hunted” lately and wanted to go somewhere no one could find her in the two months off she had following her London shows.
Fear of shows being targeted
Taylor Swift’s Vienna shows aren’t the only pop concerts that have allegedly been targeted.
In May 2025, authorities in Brazil prevented a bomb attack at a free Lady Gaga concert on the beach of Rio de Janeiro that drew an audience of over two million.
In 2017 a suicide bomber targeted an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester and detonated an explosive device in the arena foyer, which killed 22 and injured hundreds of others.
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While the pop star was physically unharmed in the attack, she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder afterwards.
She later described the Manchester Arena terror attack as something “that seems impossible to fully recover from”.
