- - Taylor Swift tears up over foiled Vienna terror plot in Eras Tour docuseries: 'We dodged a mass slaughter'

Emlyn TravisDecember 12, 2025 at 12:01 AM

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Taylor Swift performs during her Eras Tour in July 2024

Taylor Swift couldn't help but get emotional while reflecting on the failed terrorist plot that targeted one of her Eras Tour concerts in her new Disney+ docuseries, The End of an Era.

The 14-time Grammy winner teared up in the first episode as she discussed feeling like she was "skating on thin ice" amid "very violent, scary things happening to the tour," including the plot, which prompted her team and local concert promoters to cancel all of her tour dates in Vienna, Austria, last August.

"We dodged a mass slaughter," Swift said in a clip of her ahead of her five London concerts in 2024, which were her first shows following the foiled attack.

Kevin Mazur/TAS24/Getty

Taylor Swift performs in Paris in May 2024

On Aug. 7, 2024, just one day before her scheduled Vienna dates, Swift’s Taylor Nation and concert promoter Barracuda Music announced in a joint statement that the shows had been canceled following "confirmation from government officials of a planned terrorist attack at Ernst Happel Stadium."

That same month, CIA Deputy Director David S. Cohen stated that the terrorists were "plotting to kill a huge number, tens of thousands of people" at Swift's Vienna concert, The New York Times reported.

“The Austrians were able to make those arrests because the agency and our partners in the intelligence community provided them information about what this ISIS-connected group was planning to do," he said at the time.

Authorities arrested two suspects in connection to the plot at the time, including a 19-year-old who was listed as the main suspect.

A 16-year-old Syrian teenager living in Germany, identified as Mohammad A., was convicted in August 2025 of "preparing a serious act of violence and supporting a terrorist act of violence abroad," CBS News reported. He was given a suspended 18-month sentence.

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Swift addressed the plot in an August 2024 Instagram post following the conclusion of the European leg of her Eras Tour, saying it was "devastating" to cancel the Vienna dates but that the safety of her fans comes first.

"The reason for the cancellations filled me with a new sense of fear, and a tremendous amount of guilt, because so many people had planned on coming to those shows," Swift wrote. "But I was also so grateful to the authorities, because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives."

Taylor Swift attends the 'Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour' concert movie premiere in Los Angeles in October 2023

While discussing the plot in her new docuseries, Swift also addressed the knife attack at a Swift-themed dance and yoga class that killed three children and injured 10 more in Southport, U.K., just one week earlier in July 2024.

As she began to cry, Swift explained that she was getting all of her emotions out so that she'd be able to greet the families of the late children with a smile when meeting them before her London concerts.

A scene later in the docuseries' first episode shows Swift walking away from one of the family meet-and-greets in tears. Her mom, Andrea Swift, can be seen handing her a tissue as Swift hangs her head and sobs.

Following the knife attack, an 18-year-old named Axel Rudakubana pleaded guilty in January 2025 to three counts of murder, 10 counts of attempted murder, one count of producing the poison ricin, and another for possessing an Al Qaeda training manual, which is an offense under the U.K.’s Terrorism Act, the BBC reported. He was sentenced to a minimum of 52 years in prison that same month.

The first two episodes of Swift's new docuseries, The End of an Era, are streaming now on Disney+.

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