Taylor Swift treated fans to a brand new music video for her song “The Fate of Ophelia” from her 12th album, The Life of a Showgirl.
The video, which went live on Sunday, October 5, opens with Swift appearing in a picture before she comes to life, going on to stage various poses as she seems to go through time periods. In one scene, she is backstage in a red corset flanked by dancers, who all give fans a coordinated, seated dance.
The singer also tries out numerous hairstyles, from a dark black cut to long, curly red hair resembling much of her friend and fellow singer Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine.
As she sings about her love, who “came for me,” she is lifted from the bottom of a ship and right onto stage as a showgirl. She then transforms to present day Swift, gliding through what appears to be a hotel hallway as she catches a football — another ode to her fiancé — and parties in a hotel room. The video ends with the singer in a bathtub, a la her album cover.
The music video first premiered during Swift’s “Release Party of a Showgirl” theatrical event earlier this weekend, where fans noticed the pop star reunited with her Eras Tour crew for the major video feat. The clip also has several nods to Swift’s fiancé, Travis Kelce, who was the inspiration for the song. In in another shot, she walked past a door with No. 87 on it. (Kelce’s NFL jersey is 87.)
Speculation about Swift releasing a new album ramped up in August when her Taylor Nation Instagram account shared a cryptic post.
“Thinking about when she said ‘See you next era…’ ❤️🔥,” the August 11 caption read alongside 12 photos of Swift in a variety of orange costumes during her Eras Tour performances.
A countdown subsequently launched on Swift’s website. When it expired on August 12 at 12:12 a.m. ET, she officially announced her 12th album, titled The Life of a Showgirl. At the same time, Swift also shared the news in a clip from her “New Heights” podcast appearance with now-fiancé Travis and his brother, Jason Kelce.
“So I wanted to show you something,” she said as she opened a mint green case with her initials on the front in orange font and pulled out the record with its cover blurred. “This is my brand new album, The Life of a Showgirl.”
When the full podcast episode dropped on August 13, Swift revealed more details about the album, including its October 3 release date and the cover artwork. She also unveiled the 12-song tracklist: “The Fate of Ophelia,” “Elizabeth Taylor,” “Opalite,” “Father Figure,” “Eldest Daughter,” “Ruin the Friendship,” “Actually Romantic,” “Wish List,” “Wood,” “Cancelled!,” “Honey” and “The Life of a Showgirl” featuring Sabrina Carpenter.
“We knew that we had to bring the best ideas that we’ve ever had, and I also know that I’m putting pressure on this record by saying that but I don’t care because I love it that much. I’m so proud of it,” she said of working with producers Max Martin and Shellback on the project. “It just comes from the most infectiously joyful, wild, dramatic place I was in in my life. And so that effervescence has come through on this record.”
Swift recorded The Life of a Showgirl during the European leg of her Eras Tour in the summer of 2024, traveling to Sweden on her days off to work on it. She noted that the album was inspired by “what was going on behind the scenes in my inner life during this tour, which was so exuberant and electric and vibrant.”
Swift also revealed that The Life of a Showgirl would only feature 12 songs despite her previous tendency to release additional tracks.
“There’s no other songs coming,” she said. “This is 12. There’s not a 13th.”
Of the finished product, Swift gushed, “This is the record I’ve been wanting to make for a very long time.”
Nearly two weeks after announcing The Life of a Showgirl, Swift revealed on August 26 that she and Travis, also 35, are engaged. The pair shared the news in a joint Instagram post with the cheeky caption, “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married.”
That same day, Travis’ dad, Ed Kelce, said that his younger son had popped the question about two weeks prior at his home in Missouri.
Several of the Showgirl songs were written about Travis, including “The Fate of Ophelia.”
“I have a big file of lyrics, [which] is so long and so weird. There are just so many,” Swift said in a “Release Party” explanation clip. “When I’ll be in a writing session, I’ll be scrolling through this file. It was actually [producer] Shellback who came up with this really cool chord progression, and I was just singing on top of it, and my eyes scanned across ‘The Fate of Ophelia.’”
She continued, “I was like, ‘Wait, so Ophelia drowned because Hamlet just messed with her head so much that she went crazy and she couldn’t take it anymore, and all these men were just gaslighting her until she drowned.’ It’s like, ‘What if the hook was like you saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia?’”
According to Swift, the song means that Kelce is “the reason [she didn’t] end up like this tragic, poetic hero girl who passed away in a fictional world.”
