If March 17, 2023 feels like a long time ago to folks like you or me, imagine how distant the date must feel for Taylor Swift. That’s the day her record-smashing Eras Tour began, ushered in with a Ticketmaster debacle and—just two weeks into the tour—news that Swift’s six-year-long relationship with actor Joe Alwyn had ended. Back then, she was literally doing it with a broken heart. It’s safe to say that a lot has changed since then (including the state of Swift’s ticker), so it’s no wonder that the artist appeared to be fighting back tears at one of her final shows in the series.
The widely reported moment of emotion went down Saturday night in Toronto when Taylor Swift played her last Rogers Centre (née the Skydome) show of the tour. At the conclusion of “Champagne Problems,” a 2020 ballad Swift co-wrote with a pseudonymous Alwyn, the crowd responded with a minutes-long standing ovation, as shared on social media. And Swift, who is surely no stranger to applause, was visibly moved.
“Toronto, we’re at the very end of this tour, so you doing that, you have no idea how much it means to me and to my …” Swift said, turning away from the mic for a moment.
