Iggy Azalea slammed for continuing performance after backup dancer suffers seizure / Twitter
Australian rapper Iggy Azalea has been slammed for continuing to perform while one of her backup dancers suffered a seizure behind her on stage.
Azalea was in the middle of singing Black Widow at Rio de Janeiro's Maracana stadium when the dancer collapsed.
"Somebody put the medic up here," Azalea said.
But she did not halt the song, instead turning back to the crowd while the other backup dancers converged on their colleague.
After another 15 seconds, the music finally cut out and an eerie silence fell. Medics eventually drove an ambulance on stage to remove the dancer, who has since recovered.
Some fans blasted Azalea's reaction to the incident, saying she should have immediately stopped the performance until she knew the dancer was all right. The singer later addressed that criticism in an Instagram story.
"Hey guys. I just want to let everyone asking know my dancer is OK. The lights and heat caused her to have a seizure. She is backstage feeling much better," she said.
"Also, for what it's worth in regards to the backup dancer. One, I thought she had just fallen/twisted her ankle. And it may sound harsh, but you keep singing until the music stops and ask for a medic, which is what I did.
"Two, we are all really shaken up by what happened and just thankful she is OK.
"Three, I know it's easy to make memes of someone 'passed out' but someone have a seizure isn't funny, it's really scary! I hope my fans do not repost some of the memes I'm seeing about my dancer."
Azalea then launched into an anguished message to her fans, saying she feels "worn down" by the constant criticism she faces.
Iggy Azalea is seen on November 15, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. Photo / Getty
"Sometimes I really feel exhausted by the world, it feels like anything I do becomes an opportunity for people to tell me why I'm s***, why my music sucks, my clothes are ugly, why I don't matter or why I'm a horrible person," she said.
"I'm worn down. The last four years are just me existing in a world where I can do nothing right and it's hard not to feel like 'what's the point' and keep motivated.
"Everyone is just trying to make it through their day. Could we be a little kinder to each other? Seeing how much people enjoy being awful to one another is depressing."
The rapper has previously spoken candidly about her battle with depression. At the iHeart Radio Music Awards earlier this year, she said she had to take it "day by day".
"I stayed in the house for a good two years," she revealed.
"It was a really heavy period in my life where I'd had a lot of changes that had happened overnight. I'd had a big breakup, and my career wasn't going well. And I sort of found myself in this space where everything that I was used to, just my day-to-day routine, had abruptly stopped.
"And I just didn't know how to get my life back together, or what my life looked like with all of these changes, and how to get a routine going again, and just how to get my happiness back."
In March, she told Billboard her management team tried to get her to attend a mental health "retreat" in 2017, in the wake of several high profile feuds with other artists.
She thought she was on her way to a "planning meeting" when the "intervention" was sprung on her.
"I thought I was coming in to speak about something else. Then they were like, 'We think you need to go away to this place.'" she said.
"They were like, 'We think you're really talented and you can go to the studio and make hits all day, but we don't know if, you know, someone says something about you and you have a reaction — it could ruin a branding deal. We need you to go and speak to these people and make sure you're mentally prepared to come out with new music.'
"I didn't want to go there. I didn't like the idea of being sent away somewhere. I was pissed."
But she ended up embracing professional help, and underwent "intensive therapy" in Arizona.
"I've never really sat down and had an honest conversation with professional people," Azalea said.
"It was good to say something to somebody who could give me the tools and information on how to make my life manageable when I'm feeling those things. So it was really useful. I'm glad I went."
