Swifties raise money for family of fan who died at Brazil Eras Tour stop

Taylor Swift fans in Brazil have helped raise money to transport the body of Ana Clara Benevides Machado, who died at Swift’s concert on November 17, from Rio de Janeiro to the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul. A fan posted a video, reportedly from Benevides Machado’s mother, revealing they had reached their fundraising goal. “Thank God, a lot of people have donated,” she said in the video, translated by another fan. “Today I realize how loved my daughter was. From my heart, thank you all.”

Reports on Benevides Machado’s death suggest it was related to the heat, as fans complained of extreme temperatures inside the stadium where the Eras Tour was being held over the weekend. Swift, who tried to assist fans from the stage in getting water, posted about the situation on Instagram following her performance, writing that Benevides Machado had died before the show began. (However, per HuffPost, the fan’s cousin said she became ill at the beginning of the show, during “Cruel Summer.”) “I’m not going to be able to speak about this from the stage because I feel overwhelmed by grief when I even try to talk about it,” Swift posted (per People). “I want to say now I feel this loss deeply and my heart goes out to her family and friends.” At the subsequent concert, the pop star performed “Bigger Than The Whole Sky,” a bonus track from Midnights about grief.

There is not yet a full picture of exactly why Benevides Machado died or who is responsible. Blame has been cast at both Estadio Nilton Santos and Brazilian concert organizer Time For Fun (T4F) for actions taken that made the heat worse, including the lack of water inside the stadium. Following Friday’s show, T4F said it was “reinforcing the special action plan carried out for the first day of the show, especially the provision of free water in the queues and at all accesses and entrances to the stadium and inside” (per Newsweek).

“I want to know if it’s true that they are prohibited from bringing water and neglected to provide assistance,” Benevides Machado’s father Weiny Machado, told Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo (via People) in a story published Saturday. “I lost my only daughter, a happy and intelligent girl. … She was about to graduate in psychology next April, saving money.” He added, “I have no words to express my pain. She left home to fulfill a dream and came back dead.”

“This is what hurts the most. She’s been there since Friday and we only have a projection of her body arriving tomorrow at 5 p.m. The people from the concert who put it together aren’t giving us the support to bring her home,” Benevides Machado’s mother Adriana previously said in a television interview. “I know these things don’t get through to the singers and the artists don’t know about this but we wanted them to help us bring her home because we’re having to pay for everything.” Instead it appears that rather than Swift or the concert organizers stepping in, it was Swifties who came through for the family in their time of need.