Billie Eilish halted her show at the O2 arena in London on Saturday (11 June) after several fans reportedly passed out from the heat.
The “bad guy” singer, 20, is currently on her Happier than Ever world tour, which runs until the end of September.
“Are you all ok?” she asked the audience, according to the BBC. “People were fainting and getting pulled out. It’s hot, I know.”
Following complaints from fans that they were “squished”, Eilish stopped the music for around three minutes and asked everyone to give each other some room.
“Take a step back, give everybody some space,” she said. “If someone looks a little woozy, just tell someone… Don’t try to save feelings.”
She later thanked “all the security, all the staff” at the venue, telling them: “I appreciate you.”
Eilish had reportedly asked O2 security staff to hand out water to the fans.
The singer has a good reputation when it comes to crowd safety.
Last year, Eilish interrupted her performance at The Governors Ball in the US to call out security for failing to “pay attention” to an apparent disruption.
On 5 February this year, the artist paused a show in Atlanta after she noticed a fan struggling to breathe.
At the time, Eilish urged fans not to crowd the concertgoer at the State Farm Arena, offering to get her an inhaler and wait for her to feel better before continuing the show.
Later on, she told the crowd: “I wait for people to be OK until I keep going.”
Eilish drew criticism from rapper Kanye West who, like many others, believed Eilish’s statement was a dig at Travis Scott and his alleged inaction over the Astroworld tragedy in Houston, Texas that left 10 people dead and hundreds more injured.
West – who has now legally changed his name to Ye – had earlier in an Instagram post, threatened to cancel his forthcoming headliner act at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts festival in April 2022 until Eilish apologised to the “Goosebumps” singer.
Eilish responded to West’s demand for an apology in the comments of his since-deleted Instagram post, writing: “Literally never said a thing about Travis. Was just helping a fan.”
Scott, with other Astroworld stakeholders such as Drake and organisers Live Nation, faces a $2bn (£1.49m) lawsuit that lists 200-plus plaintiffs, or victims’s families seeking punitive action against the defendants over the tragedy.
In an interview a month after the Astroworld tragedy, Scott claimed he wasn’t aware people were seriously injured and had died until after his performance was over.
