Yoga Teacher Who Led Taylor Swift-Themed Class for Kids Speaks Out About Deadly Southport Attack
Leanne Lucas, the instructor whose Taylor Swift-themed children's dance and yoga class became the target of a deadly stabbing in Southport, England, last year, is speaking out about the attack for the first time.
In a sit-down interview with BBC posted Monday (Feb. 24), Lucas recalled from start to finish how then-17-year-old Axel Rudakubana — who in January pleaded guilty to the murders of three young girls and the attempted killings of 10 other people at the July 2024 class — burst into her studio with a knife. As he began attacking the children in the room, Lucas sprang into action calling the police and urging the rest of the class to run to safety.
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That's when she says Rudakubana turned on her, leaving her spine, head, ribs, lung and shoulder blade severely injured. 'I just knew that if I didn't get out, everyone was going to die,' Lucas told the broadcaster with tears in her eyes. 'I thought that he wasn't going to stop until he killed everyone. I thought that he wanted to kill us all.'
Rudakubana was sentenced to 52 years in prison, with Judge Julian Goose adding in his January ruling that the teenager would likely 'never be released.' In addition to critically wounding multiple people, Rudakubana killed 9-year-old Alice Da Silva Aguiar, 7-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe and 6-year-old Bebe King.
In the interview, Lucas recalled the agony of helping the rest of the children escape while enduring the pain of her injuries, for which she was later hospitalized. She noted that police have told her that the surviving children would not have made it out of the class alive if not for her and fellow organizer Heidi, who also assisted the fleeing children at the scene — but Lucas still feels guilt over the three girls she couldn't save.
'That gives nothing for the children who did die … that doesn't take that away,' Lucas told the BBC. 'I just don't know what else I could have done.'
The dance class was just one of countless Swift-themed events local organizers all over the globe put together during the 'Anti-Hero' singer's Eras Tour last year and in 2023. Before the attack started, Lucas remembers her students happily making friendship bracelets and chatting in a circle, with 9-year-old Aguiar apparently saying shortly before her death, 'This is the best day of my life.''
Swift personally spoke out about the killings one day afterward, writing in a statement, 'The horror of yesterday's attack in Southport is washing over me continuously, and I'm just completely in shock …'
'The loss of life and innocence, and the horrendous trauma inflicted on everyone who was there, the families and first responders,' she added at the time. 'These were just little kids at a dance class. I am at a complete loss for how to ever convey my sympathies to these families.'
About a month later, Swift hosted some of the survivors and their families at her London Eras shows and personally greeted them backstage at Wembley Stadium.
Lucas told the BBC that she still has to take life 'an hour at a time' amid her grief, but that Aguiar, Stancombe and King are the reasons she keeps going. 'The only reason to survive is the fact that I did get out, and I am alive,' the instructor said. 'The fact that the girls aren't, I've got to stay alive for them. Otherwise, what's the point?'
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