{"id":2071623,"date":"2025-10-06T06:37:22","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T06:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2071623"},"modified":"2025-10-06T06:37:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T06:37:22","slug":"taylor-swift-debuts-fate-of-ophelia-music-video-on-youtube","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/taylor-swift-debuts-fate-of-ophelia-music-video-on-youtube\/","title":{"rendered":"Taylor Swift Debuts &#8216;Fate of Ophelia&#8217; Music Video on YouTube"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/taylor-swift\/\" id=\"auto-tag_taylor-swift\" data-tag=\"taylor-swift\">Taylor Swift<\/a>\u2018s \u201c<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/the-fate-of-ophelia\/\" id=\"auto-tag_the-fate-of-ophelia\" data-tag=\"the-fate-of-ophelia\">The Fate of Ophelia<\/a>\u201d has premiered online on YouTube, just a little over 48 hours after it had its first bow on the big screen in theaters nationwide. The elaborate music video for the lead single from her new album is joined as a YouTube exclusive by the lyric videos for all 11 remaining tracks from her smash \u201c<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/the-life-of-a-showgirl\/\" id=\"auto-tag_the-life-of-a-showgirl\" data-tag=\"the-life-of-a-showgirl\">The Life of a Showgirl<\/a>\u201d album.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\">\n<div class=\"jeg_video_container jeg_video_content\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Taylor Swift - The Fate of Ophelia (Official Music Video)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ko70cExuzZM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThe \u201cFate of Ophelia\u201d video, directed by Swift herself, features Swift and her dancers and other participants from the Eras Tour moving exuberantly through a variety of costumes and settings. The star\u2019s looks in the video include her being pictured as as a classic showgirl with Marilyn Monroe-style platinum-blond tresses; a brunette go-go dancer out of the 1960s; an Esther Williams-style bathing beauty in a Busby Berkeley\/MGM musicals tableu; and a raven-haired actress walking a pirate\u2019s plank in an old-school theater setting. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tTheater owners often complain about short theatrical windows, and they don\u2019t come any shorter than the barely-more-than-two-days that \u201cThe Fate of Ophelia\u201d and the lyric videos were exclusively on cinema screens this weekend as part of the program dubbed \u201c<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/taylor-swift-the-official-release-party-of-a-showgirl\/\" id=\"auto-tag_taylor-swift-the-official-release-party-of-a-showgirl\" data-tag=\"taylor-swift-the-official-release-party-of-a-showgirl\">Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl<\/a>.\u201d But you won\u2019t see many of those cinema operators complaining, in this case. \u201cRelease Party\u201d was always advertised as a three-day-only affair, and while Swifties knew in advance that much of the material in \u201cOfficial Release Party\u201d would go online on Sunday night, they <em>still <\/em>flocked to theaters anyway. The theatrical presentation landed with a boffo<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2025\/music\/box-office\/taylor-swift-release-party-showgirl-box-office-debut-smashing-machine-bombs-1236540485\/\"> $33 million U.S. box office gross<\/a> for its Friday-through-Sunday limited run. (Furthering the incentive to flock to theaters, \u201cRelease Party\u201d did include elements that are not going up on YouTube, at least at present, like behind-the-scenes footage and spoken introductions to each new song.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThose who saw \u201cThe Official Release Party of a Showgirl\u201d in theaters got plenty of context for the making of the \u201cOphelia\u201d music video and the intent behind it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cThe idea I came up with for this music video was sort of a journey throughout all these different ways in which over time periods, historically, you could be a showgirl,\u201d Swift <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2025\/music\/news\/taylor-swift-official-release-party-showgirl-what-we-learned-1236538556\/\">said after premiering the video in the theatrical presentation<\/a>. \u201cLike, how you would be in the public eye back during the 1800s, when you\u2019d sit for a Pre-Raphaelite painting. Or you could be a showgirl by being a cabaret burlesque club performer. You could be a theatrical actor putting on a performance. You could a Vegas showgirl. You could be one of the girls in the Busby Berkeley screen-siren era of the \u201830s and \u201840s. You could be a pop singer on the Eras Tour.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  size-large alignnone \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure  lrv-u-font-family-secondary u-color-medium-grey lrv-u-border-b-1 u-border-color-light-grey-tint-two u-margin-b-150 lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:1024px\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  \">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-flex lrv-u-flex-direction-column lrv-u-padding-t-1 lrv-u-padding-b-1\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"lrv-u-color-black lrv-u-line-height-normal lrv-u-font-size-14 u-font-family-neue u-letter-spacing-007-rem u-margin-b-050\">Taylor Swift<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"u-color-medium-grey u-font-family-neue-xxs\">TAS Rights Management<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tOne of the reasons for her excitement over the \u201cOphelia\u201d video is that \u201cis that we got everybody back together from the Eras Tour,\u201d she said. \u201cAll of the performers that you saw on that stage are back in this music video, as well as so many of the people who worked behind the scenes to create the Eras Tour.\u201d That includes everyone from the dancers to production designer Ethan Tobman and choreographer Mandy Moore.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThere is no appearance from Travis Kelce, but a football does make a cameo, as, during the lines \u201cPledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes,\u201d Swift catches a ball thrown her way and then immediately tosses it behind her. (In the BTS footage in the movie, Swift is heard worrying about her lack of football experience, before pulling the move off with aplomb.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tIt\u2019s not a big spoiler to say that the music video ends with a recreation of the album cover image of Swift mostly submerged in a tub in full glam attire. What many fans may not know is that this was all borrowed from a classic painting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tFor the denouement of the \u201cOphelia\u201d video, Swift \u201cwanted to match the framing ideally to the album cover and kind of just frame it exactly like that, so that people are like, \u2018Oh, so the cover is a reference to the Ophelia painting, and this ending is a reference to the cover.\u2019 So, art history for pop fans!\u201d The painting she\u2019s referring to is a circa-1850 painting of the Shakespearian character Ophelia by British artist Sir\u00a0John Everett Malais, which portrays the doomed woman floating and singing in the water before she drowns herself, as described by Gertrude but not directly portrayed in \u201cHamlet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cOphelia drowned because Hamlet just messed with her head so much that she went crazy and she couldn\u2019t take it anymore, and all these men were just gaslighting her until she drowned,\u201d Swift explained. But in her version, \u201cwhat if the hook is that you saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia? Like. basically you are the reason why I didn\u2019t end up like this, tragic, poetic hero girl, who passed away in a fictional world?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tAdmitting that it might sound like \u201ca stupid thing to say,\u201d Swift goes ahead and declares: \u201cI love Shakespeare\u2026 It holds up. It\u2019s actually not overhyped! And I love those tragedies so much. I fall in love with those characters so much that it hurts me that they die. \u2026 This is now the second song where I\u2019ve gone back in and (am) like, \u2018Yo, what if they got married instead of they die?\u2019\u201d (The other one she\u2019s referring to is, of course, \u201cLove Story,\u201d which lets Romeo and Juliet off the double-suicide hook.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThere\u2019s deeper meaning to some of the other imagery in the music video than might first be intuited by viewers. For instance, that classic movie-musical scene in which she and all the dancers are wearing bathing caps and carrying life preservers\u2026 it celebrates the famously swimming movie star Esther Williams, cineastes will now, but it\u2019s also, yes, an Ophelia reference. \u201cRight now we are sitting on the set of what we\u2019re kind of calling our Busby Berkeley-inspired, MGM, screen queen 1930s and \u201840s\u201d motif, she says, \u201cand we\u2019ve got it looking kind of a little bit like a beach\/swim\/pool thing. And\u00a0<em>that\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0a play on Ophelia.\u201d The Shakespearian character drowned herself, as previously noted, but in her movie-musical homage scene, \u201cwe\u2019ve got these lifesaving devices, which could have prevented that from happening,\u201d she pointed out, with tongue firmly in cheek.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tViewers also learned, in the movie presentation\u2019s behind-the-scenes footage, how a certain very handsome bread came to make a cameo. She is seen going over the shots planned for the next day and remembering that some loafing around is planned. \u201cOh, I can bake the bread\u2026 Can it be my bread? Can my bread be in the music video?\u201d she says. The next day, she is delighted to personally add that to the set design. \u201cThis is a really exciting day for me as a baker,\u201d she says, \u201cbecause my bread is actually a music video star as of today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tOne point that comes up as the dancers learn their choreography: \u201cThe Fate of Ophelia\u201d was not actually played on-set, to avoid leaks. And so the dancers required extra direction because of that. \u201cWe\u2019re in secret sauce,\u201d she said, between takes, as she directed on-set. \u201cNo one\u2019s hearing this track. All anyone\u2019s hearing in the room is just click. So I also have to be able to inform the dancers, \u2018You need to feel this in this moment.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tYouTube views will go some small way toward the massive consumption total that her \u201cThe Life of a Showgirl\u201d album has been racking up prior to the video\u2019s online release. Luminate reported Saturday that the <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2025\/music\/news\/taylor-swift-album-sales-first-day-billboard-million-showgirl-1236540366\/\">new album had sold 2.7 million copies on its first day<\/a> (including pre-orders). That one-day tally gave it the second-best sales total for any full week since the advent of Soundscan in 1991, trailing only the first-week total for Adele\u2019s \u201c25.\u201d With six days of sales yet to come after that opening day, not to mention a full week of streaming numbers \u2014 including this new video \u2014 Swift may be poised to break Adele\u2019s all-time record in the days to come.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThe 11 lyric videos \u2014 which are rolling out on YouTube one by one, starting with \u201cOpalite,\u201d following the \u201cOphelia\u201d online premiere \u2014 have the onscreen lyrics backed by repeating video loops of Swift that were shot on the \u201cOphelia\u201d set.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\">\n<div class=\"jeg_video_container jeg_video_content\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Taylor Swift - Opalite (Lyric Video)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3PJC6uPIekc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source variety.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taylor Swift\u2018s \u201cThe Fate of Ophelia\u201d has premiered online on YouTube, just a little over 48 hours after it had its first bow on the big screen in theaters nationwide. The elaborate music video for the lead single from her new album is joined as a YouTube exclusive by the lyric videos for all 11 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2071624,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[23084,387461,386772,343132],"class_list":["post-2071623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-taylor-swift","tag-taylor-swift-the-official-release-party-of-a-showgirl","tag-the-fate-of-ophelia","tag-the-life-of-a-showgirl"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Taylor-Swift-Debuts-Fate-of-Ophelia-Music-Video-on-YouTube.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2071623"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2071625,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071623\/revisions\/2071625"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2071624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2071623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2071623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2071623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}