Taylor Swift’s first music video The Fate of Ophelia from The Life Of A Showgirl lands with multiple easter eggs, references

It’s here! Taylor Swift dropped the first music video for her new single The Fate Of Ophelia from her new album The Life Of A Showgirl on Sunday. The song, though, was first available for viewing on Friday, October 3, as part of a movie theatre release party event for her album. According to reports, the video is full of references and Easter eggs for fans to uncover.

The music video — which Swift directed herself — sees the star serving several different looks. While some are elaborate get-ups inspired by her Showgirl era, others are inspired by various interpretations of Ophelia, a character in William Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Swift turns Ophelia

At one point, Swift wears an ethereal white gown as she lounges amid a backdrop that evokes John Everett Millais' famous painting Ophelia. Later in the video, she nods back to the art dressed in 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 as she dances in a brunette wig and flapper-esque dress.

Eater eggs, Kelce reference

At one point in the video, she's on a pirate ship and falls off, only to emerge in a mid-century synchronised swimmer outfit, holding on to a raft. The symbolism of Swift's buoyancy — and the song's theme that fiancé Travis Kelce's love saved her from the "fate of Ophelia" — is another nod to Hamlet, as Ophelia's character famously drowns after descending into madness.

There are Easter eggs as well, including 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 a Kansas City Chiefs player.

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.

About The Life of a Showgirl

Swift first 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.” The singer revealed that the songs were about her life, which was touring with her Eras Tour.

"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."