Taylor Swift was determined to never let The Eras Tour crowd know when she was feeling sick during a show.
The Shake It Off singer, who embarked on the record-breaking global tour between early 2023 and December 2024, has insisted that it was “not an option” for her to postpone a show or even give a sub-par performance due to illness.
“For me, when I’m on tour, especially The Eras Tour, I just make a decision at the beginning of the tour that there’s no option to not go on stage,” Taylor said on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. “That’s not an option. And it’s not an option to perform (less), you’re not like, ‘Oh, I think I’ll do the show at a level six tonight’ – that’s not an option. Even if you had the stomach flu, which I had multiple times during the tour, my goal was like, never let them know you have the stomach flu.”
The 35-year-old explained that all of the time, money and effort her fans spent on attending the concert was “bigger” than her, so she would always say: “I’m doing the show.”
The pop superstar also shared that the sparkly Versace bodysuit she wore at the start of each show helped her push through.
“Any time I put it on, I could be like coughing from a horrible virus, I could (have a) stomach virus, I could be aching – I was constantly in a lot of physical pain – but when I put that on, I was like, ‘No, this is popping. I’m doing it. We’re going!'” she recalled.
Three shows in Vienna, Austria were the only dates to be cancelled during The Eras Tour, but this was due to a terrorism plot rather Taylor herself.
Elsewhere in the interview, the star revealed to host Stephen how she winds down after the mammoth concert.
“It’s crazy that these people are being so nice and wonderful and that’s hard to go to sleep after,” she said. “So I will go back to the hotel, you know, get out of the costume (and) into the bath immediately, into the bath, mermaid time.
“And then I get the most amount of room service possible… everything I want on that given night. I’m just like. ‘I gotta power up for the (next) three-and-a-half-hour show.’ It’s the best.”
Taylor added that she also signs CDs, watches the U.S. crime show Dateline and listens to audiobooks.
The Fate of Ophelia singer lifts the lid on the tour in the new documentary series, The End of an Era, which premieres on Disney+ on Friday, the day before her 36th birthday.
