Brazilian police said Sunday that they had thwarted a plot to detonate a bomb at Lady Gaga's concert the night before in Rio de Janeiro. The event, the biggest show of her career, drew some 2 million fans to Copacabana Beach. Rio de Janeiro's state police said they worked with the Justice Ministry to disrupt an attack planned by a group that was spreading hate speech against the LGBTQ community. Police said the group sought to radicalize and recruit teenagers to carry out attacks using Molotov cocktails and improvised explosives, the AP reports.
"The plan was treated as a 'collective challenge' with the aim of gaining notoriety on social media," police said. Authorities reported arresting two people in connection with the plot—one they said was the group's leader on illegal weapons possession charges in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul and a teenager on child pornography charges in Rio. Police also raided the locations of 15 suspects across several states in Brazil and confiscated phones and other electronic devices, authorities said.
- The concert: The free show was a hit with the throng of screaming, dancing, and singing fans, per CBS News. "You waited for me, you waited for more than 10 years for me," Lady Gaga told fans packed on the beach at the start of the concert. As she unfurled a Brazilian flag, she said: "Brazil, I'm ready. I'm going to give it my all." The show was paid for by the city to boost the local economy. Fans began arriving at dawn to claim spots on the sand. "Today is the best day of my life," said Manoela Dobes, 27, who wore a dress with a photo of her meeting Gaga in the US in 2019.
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