Brazilian police arrest 2 people over alleged plot targeting Lady Gaga
concert in Rio
[May 05, 2025]
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Police in Brazil said on Sunday that two people
have been arrested in connection with an alleged plot to detonate
explosives at a free Lady Gaga concert in Rio de Janeiro.
The Rio event on Saturday was the biggest show of the pop star's career
that attracted an estimated 2.5 million fans to Copacabana Beach and had
crowds screaming and dancing along.
Felipe Cury, secretary of the Rio police, said authorities believed the
suspects sought to target Brazil’s LGBTQ community.
“They were clearly saying that they were planning an attack at Lady
Gaga’s concert motivated by sexual orientation,” Cury told a press
conference on Sunday.
Rio Police chief Luiz Lima said the group disseminated hate speech and
violent content online “aimed at gaining notoriety in order to attract
more viewers, more participants — most of them teenagers, many of them
children.”
Even as Brazilian authorities said they arrested suspects in the hours
before Lady Gaga's show, the event went ahead without disruption —
leading some to question the seriousness of the threat. Serious security
concerns typically lead organizers to cancel such massive events — as
happened with Taylor Swift’s concerts in Vienna last year.
Police said said nothing about the alleged plot at the time to in an
effort to “avoid panic" and “the distortion of information.”
A spokesperson for Lady Gaga said the pop star and her team “learned
about this alleged threat via media reports this morning. Prior to and
during the show, there were no known safety concerns, nor any
communication from the police or authorities to Lady Gaga regarding any
potential risks.”
The statement added: “Her team worked closely with law enforcement
throughout the planning and execution of the concert and all parties
were confident in the safety measures in place.”
Security was tight at Saturday's concert, with 5,200 military and police
officers deployed to the beach where fans were reveling in the pop
singer's classic hits like “Born This Way,” which became something of an
LGBTQ anthem after its 2011 release.
Homes in several states raided
Authorities arrested two people in connection with the alleged plot — a
man described as the group's leader in the southern state of Rio Grande
do Sul on illegal weapons possession charges, and a teenager in Rio on
child pornography charges. Police did not elaborate on their exact roles
in the plot or on how the group came to target Lady Gaga’s free concert.
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Lady Gaga performs during her free concert on Copacabana Beach in
Rio de Janeiro, Saturday, May 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)
 “Those involved were recruiting
participants, including teenagers, to carry out integrated attacks
using improvised explosives and Molotov cocktails,” police said.
The Justice Ministry said that it determined the group posed a “risk
to public order." It said the group falsely presented themselves
online as “Little Monsters” — Lady Gaga’s nickname for her fans — in
order to lure teeangers into “networks with violent and
self-destructive content.”
During a series of raids on the homes of 15 suspects across several
Brazilian states, authorities confiscated phones and other
electronic devices. Although police said they believed homemade
bombs were intended for use in the planned attack, there was no
mention of the raids turning up any weapons or explosive material.
Cury said one of the suspects whose home was raided in the city of
Macaé, near Rio, “had a religious motivation" and "claimed the
singer (Lady Gaga) was a Satanist.”
‘Historical moment’
Lady Gaga has expressed gratitude for the enormous crowd in an
Instagram post that said nothing of the alleged plot.
“Nothing could prepare me for the feeling I had during last night’s
show — the absolute pride and joy I felt singing for the people of
Brazil,” she wrote. “The sight of the crowd during my opening songs
took my breath away. Your heart shines so bright, your culture is so
vibrant and special, I hope you know how grateful I am to have
shared this historical moment with you.”
Her free beach concert stood out at a time of surging ticket prices
for live music around the world as concert-goers pay budget-busting
costs to see their favorite artists. Last month she performed at
Coachella Valley music festival in California, where tickets fetched
upwards of $600 for one weekend.
Rio has done this before — last May, superstar Madonna performed the
finale to her latest world tower for some 1.6 million fans on the
sprawling sands of Copacabana Beach.
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