Olivia Rodrigo’s New Music Video Is a Dizzying Romp Through Versailles

This month, Olivia Rodrigo announced that her third album You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love is headed our way June 12. She just released its lead single, “Drop Dead,” alongside a music video befitting a pop princess, shot by photographer Petra Collins at the Palace of Versailles. Many productions have used the chateau as a backdrop. But, a representative from Versailles confirmed over email that this is the first time a music video has been filmed inside its royal apartments.

The permission “comes from a desire to inspire young audiences across the world to visit Versailles and consider the palace as a place of beauty and love,” the representative told me.

Rodrigo has history with Collins. Five years ago, the millennial It Girl also directed a Y2K-inspired music video for Rodrigo’s wildly popular song, “good 4 u.” Together, they make a great fit. Both celebrate the female gaze. Plus, Collins takes palpable cues from director Sofia Coppola—who, funny enough, became the first director to film in Versailles nooks like Marie Antoinette’s private theater in 2006.

Rodrigo’s latest romp begins with footage of her dancing in a crowded, colorfully-lit bar, singing about a date she wishes would never end. Then, she blinks. The light changes. “One night I was bored in bed and stalked you on the internet,” Rodrigo sings, wearing wired headphones. The camera pans out to reveal she’s bed-rotting in the ornate surroundings of Versailles, wearing a frilly little number that could’ve come straight from a Rococo painting.

“You’re looking like an angel on the walls of Versailles,” Rodrigo sings, as the chorus hits. By that point, it’s clear that Rodrigo’s in the castle’s Grand Couvert Antechamber of the Queen. French painter Pierre Mignard’s expansive tapestry Apollo and the Muses on Mount Parnassus (c. 1687) hang prominently behind her. Royalty ate publicly here. There’s even a stage, since “Marie Antoinette demanded that music be played throughout every meal,” according to Versailles.

From there, Rodrigo runs and dances throughout the palace, singing about her crush as the residence’s largest space—the military-focused Gallery of Great Battles—and the Princes’ Staircase streak by. Two girls join her in an electric guitar jam session in the Queen’s Bedroom, which still features Marie Antoinette’s decor. The party finally ends outside, amid the Orangery, the Hundred Steps, and the Marble Court. Rodrigo collapses there, exhausted, as the sun either sets or rises on another day at this timeless abode.