Taylor Swift made it a priority to ensure that no one in The Eras Tour audience ever sensed when she was feeling unwell during a performance.
The Shake It Off star, who travelled the globe on the record-breaking tour from early 2023 through December 2024, explained that cancelling a show or giving anything less than her full effort simply was “not an option” for her.
“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 noted that the time, energy and money her fans dedicated to attending the show felt “bigger” than her own discomfort, so she always told herself, “I'm doing the show.”
The pop icon also revealed that the glittering Versace bodysuit she wore at the start of each concert gave her a burst of determination.
“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.
Only three Vienna dates were cancelled throughout the entire run of The Eras Tour, and this was due to a terrorist threat rather than Taylor feeling unwell.
In another part of the interview, she told Stephen how she decompresses after performing such a massive show.
“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 spends her downtime signing CDs, watching the U.S. crime series Dateline and listening to audiobooks.
The Fate of Ophelia singer offers a deeper look into the tour in her new documentary series, The End of an Era, premiering on Disney+ on Friday, the day before her 36th birthday.
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