(London) Two weeks after organizers canceled Taylor Swift’s Vienna concerts due to a foiled terrorist plot, the singer has released her first statement on the cancellations.
“Seeing our Vienna concerts canceled was devastating,” she wrote in a statement posted on Instagram Wednesday. “The reason for the cancellations has filled me with a new sense of fear and a huge sense of guilt, as so many people had planned to come to these concerts.”
She thanked the authorities – “thanks to them we were crying concerts and not lives,” she wrote – and said she had waited until the end of the European leg of her tour Eras to prioritize safety before speaking out.
“Let me be very clear: I am not going to speak about something in public if I think it might provoke those who would harm the fans who come to my concerts,” she wrote.
Following the cancellations, Swift’s representatives did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Associated Press and other news organizations; her social media pages have become inactive.
“In cases like this, silence is actually a form of restraint, waiting to speak out at the appropriate time. My priority was to complete our European tour safely, and it is with great relief that I can say that we have done so,” she added.
Concert promoter Barracuda Music had announced the cancellation of the three-night Vienna tour that was scheduled to begin on August 8 because the arrests related to the conspiracy were too close to the start of the concert. Authorities said a 19-year-old suspect had planned to target concertgoers outside the Ernst Happel Stadium with knives or homemade explosives, hoping to “kill as many people as possible.” Austrian officials said they appeared to have been inspired by the Islamic State group and al-Qaeda.
The suspect and another 17-year-old were taken into custody on August 6, the day before the concerts were announced to be cancelled. A third suspect, aged 18, was arrested on August 8. The 19-year-old’s lawyer said the allegations were “exaggerated at best” and argued that Austrian authorities were “exaggerating this” in order to gain new surveillance powers.
Tens of thousands of “Swifties” from all over the world had travelled to Vienna for the concerts.
Taylor Swift’s Instagram post also commemorated the end of the European leg of her tour with a tribute to her five nights at Wembley Stadium in London, which she said played a role in her decision to wait to perform and ultimately “felt like a beautiful dream sequence.”
“I have decided that all my energy must be devoted to helping protect the nearly half a million people who will be coming to see the concerts in London,” she wrote the day after her final Wembley show. “My team and I have worked hand in hand with stadium staff and the UK authorities every day to achieve this goal.” The London concerts, the scheduled stop after Vienna, came shortly after a stabbing at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class left three little girls dead in the UK. In a statement released after the Southport attack, Swift said she was “completely shocked” and “completely lost as to how to convey my condolences to these families.” Media reported that Swift met some of the survivors backstage in London.
The record-breaking tour is on hiatus until October, when it will resume in Miami.