With surprise song, Taylor Swift seemingly pays tribute to fan who died

With surprise song, Taylor Swift seemingly pays tribute to fan who died
Ana Clara Benevides Machado; photo courtesy of Jaine Benevides Siqueira

While Taylor Swift said that she wasn’t going to address the tragic death of a fan from the stage, she seemingly did so in song.

As previously reported, Ana Clara Benevides Machado passed out while attending Taylor’s show in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on November 17; she later died of cardiac arrest at a local hospital, local police told ABC News. An investigation has been opened into her death.

Billboard reports that a clip on TikTok shows Taylor performing the song “Bigger Than the Whole Sky” as one of her “surprise songs” at her November 19 show in Rio de Janeiro.

“Bigger Than the Whole Sky,” a track on the extended (3am Edition) of Midnights, is about grief over the loss of someone you’ve never met.  Many fans say they’ve connected with the lyrics of the song after suffering miscarriages.

“Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, You were bigger than the whole sky,” she sang. “You were more than just a short time/and I’ve got a lot to pine about/I’ve got a lot to live without, I’m never gonna meet, what could’ve been, would’ve been, what should’ve been you.”

“I can’t even tell you how devastated I am by this,” Taylor wrote on her Instagram Story about Ana Clara’s death.  “I’m not going to be able to speak about this from stage because I feel overwhelmed by grief when I even try to talk about it. I want to say now I feel this loss deeply and my broken heart goes out to her family and friends.”

At Taylor’s November 17 show, the heat index read 140 degrees Fahrenheit, and she called for water to brought to fans during the show. She subsequently canceled the November 18 show due to the excessive heat, and rescheduled it for November 20.

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