Lorde surprised the audience at her concert at the Anthem Monday with some surprising news: She’d taken a dip in the Potomac before the show.
lorde admitting to swimming in the potomac at the dc concert pic.twitter.com/Cf8g2QK4Pj
— anna (◍•ᴗ•◍) (@whyets) August 30, 2022
“I was thinking today, I was lying in the Potomac river,” she said. “I love getting to swim in water where I’m playing. It makes me feel like I know you”—the rest of the sentence is obscured by what sounds like audience laughter and general confusion.
https://twitter.com/_natalieescobar/status/1564425696637747201?s=21&t=4vKmDqMsaWnj_FQc3gcphw
lorde just told a dc audience she swam and soaked in the potomac river today and the whole room booed her 😭
— austin (@jesuissupreme) August 30, 2022
https://twitter.com/jasonshevrin/status/1564444889726812162?s=21&t=vgLdb2ynN6AICQ1xVIj_CQ
https://twitter.com/mrussinovich1/status/1564425370291650565?s=20&t=HIkn8rFh-pQaHqFD7Hnb6w
While many people in Washington are appalled by the prospect of any interaction with the Potomac beyond looking at it once in a while, there are people who’d like to see the 50-plus year ban on swimming in the river go away. As one advocate told Washingtonian this past spring, “It’s clean 350 days a year.”
New Zealand provides general travel advice for its citizens when they travel to the US on its SafeTravel website, a spokesperson for the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade tells Washingtonian in an email. However, the spokesperson says: “We do not provide travel advice about individual locations in the United States.”
This article has been updated with comment from the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade.
Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. He lives in Del Ray.
