Taylor Swift opens up about UK stabbing attack in new docuseries
Taylor Swift is opening up about navigating the aftermath of the deadly 2024 stabbing attack that led to the deaths of three children in the U.K. while her Eras Tour was underway.
"We've had a series of very violent, scary things happen to the tour -- like, we dodged a massacre situation, and so, I've just been kind of all over the place," Swift says in episode 1 of her new "The End of an Era" docuseries.
The attack unfolded in July 2024 in Southport, a seaside town in England about 20 miles north of Liverpool. According to local police, young children were at a Taylor Swift-themed event at a dance school when a teenager entered the facility and stabbed multiple children.
Three girls -- Bebe King, 6, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Alice Da Silva Aguiar, 9 -- were killed in the attack, and 10 people were also injured, according to police.
Not long after the attack, Swift canceled her three Eras Tour concerts in Austria in August 2024, after two suspects were arrested for allegedly plotting a terror attack targeting the concerts, according to authorities.
The Eras Tour resumed later that same month in London, and as the docuseries shows, Swift met privately with the families of the Southport victims and survivors of the attack before each of her five concerts at Wembley Stadium.
In the docuseries, Swift opens up before she meets the families and survivors and grows emotional, breaking into tears before and after the meetings.
"It's gonna be fine because when I meet them, I'm not gonna do this. I swear to God," Swift says about crying beforehand.
"They don't have to worry about you," she continues. "It's like, you're like a pilot flying the plane. ... You just have to have a calm, cool, collected tone of like, 'We will be landing in Dallas at 6:05 p.m., got a little turbulence up ahead, but it's nothing we haven't seen before. Just keep your seat belts fastened and welcome to the Eras Tour.'"
Axel Rudakubana, 18, was sentenced to 52 years in prison in January 2025 for the Southport stabbing attack. Rudakubana pleaded guilty to all 16 charges against him, including three counts of murder, 10 charges of attempted murder and more, on the first day of his trial at Liverpool Crown Court.
At the sentencing, Judge Julian Goose called the attack the "most extreme, shocking and exceptionally serious crime."
"It was such extreme violence of the utmost seriousness, it was difficult to comprehend," Goose said at the time. "I'm sure Rudakubana had a settled and determined intention to kill and would have killed all 26 children."
