NEED TO KNOW
- Taylor Swift released the music video for her new single “The Fate of Ophelia”
- The video, which debuted on YouTube Sunday evening, came as part of the movie theater release event for her new album The Life of a Showgirl
- Showgirl was released on Oct. 3
Ophelia’s fate has been revealed!
Taylor Swift dropped the highly anticipated music video for her new single “The Fate of Ophelia” on Sunday, Oct. 5 — though it was first available for viewing Friday, Oct. 3 as part of the movie theater release party event for her new album The Life of a Showgirl. As is par for the course with Swift, the video is full of references and Easter eggs for fans to uncover.
The music video — which Swift, 35, directed herself — sees the star serving a number of different looks. Some are colorful, elaborate get-ups inspired by her Showgirl era, while others are inspired by various interpretations of Ophelia, a character in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
At one point, Swift wears an ethereal white gown as she lounges amid a backdrop that evokes John Everett Miliais’ famous painting Ophelia. She nods back to the art later in the video, with a sparkly dress and long, curly red wig. The first dress, though, calls to mind another painting of Ophelia done by Joseph Mordecai in the 1870s.
Swift then leaps from the painting set into more modern looks, including a flapper-esque costume with a long brunette wig accompanied by a choreographed dance.
At one point, she’s on a pirate ship and falls off, only to emerge in a mid-century synchronized swimmer outfit, holding on tight to a life raft. The symbolism of Swift’s buoyancy — and the song’s theme that fiancé Travis Kelce’s love saved from the “fate of Ophelia” — is another nod to Hamlet, as Ophelia’s character famously drowns after descending into madness.
Other Easter eggs include a shot of sourdough bread, a baking hobby the star has said she’s “obsessed” with, and the singer catching a football, a nod to Kelce’s role as Kansas City Chiefs tight end.
Swift’s album cover art reflects the song’s theme, as she is symbolically “drowning” in a bathtub, which nods to Millais’ painting of Ophelia partially submerged in the water while floating in a river.
The Grammy winner announced The Life of a Showgirl on fiancé Travis Kelce’s New Heights podcast in August, saying it was the album she’d “been wanting to make for a very long time.”
“This album is about what was going on behind my scenes in my inner life during this tour, which was so exuberant and electric and vibrant,” she said. “I’m so proud of it, and it just comes from the most infectiously joyful, wild, dramatic place I was in in my life. That effervescence has come through on this record.”
Swift recorded the album in Sweden amid her Eras Tour with collaborators Max Martin and Shellback.
On Sept. 19, she announced an official release party for the album, which will be in theaters through Oct. 5. The movie theater even includes the “Fate of Ophelia” music video, along with behind-the-scenes footage of the video’s creation, new lyric videos and “cut by cut explanations of what inspired this music.”
For more on Taylor Swift, pick up PEOPLE’s newly updated special edition Taylor Swift A to Z: A Showgirl’s Life, out now.
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