Taylor Swift has released the music video for “The Fate Of Ophelia”, the first from her new album The Life of a Showgirl.
The US popstar, 35, released her 12th studio record The Life of a Showgirl on 3 October, her first since her engagement to Travis Kelce and also the first since she revealed in May that she had regained control over her back catalogue.
The music video premiered over the weekend at the screening of the limited-run film The Official Release Party Of A Showgirl, released in theatres on Friday as a companion piece to The Life of a Showgirl. The film has already shot to No 1 at the global box office with an estimated $46m collection over the weekend, reported Variety.
The video for “The Fate Of Ophelia”, which was written and directed by Swift herself, was released on YouTube on Monday (6 October), and sees the “Lover” singer as a showgirl through different historical eras.
Multiple scenes appear to be interpretations of the character Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, who went mad from grief and heartbreak before she drowned.
“So Ophelia drowned because Hamlet just messed with her head so much that she went crazy. She couldn't take it anymore and all these men were just gaslighting her until she drowned,” Swift explained in the film, which featured behind-the-scenes footage, lyric videos from the album, and “cut-by-cut explanations” of what inspired the songs.
“I fall in love with those characters so much that it hurts me that they die. This is now the second song where I've gone back in and been like, ‘Yo, what if they got married instead of they die?’” she added, referring to her 2008 song “Love Story”, which turned Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet from a tragedy to a romance with a happy ending.
The video opens with a single janitor cleaning up what appears to be a lavish theatre lobby, with the camera zooming into a piece of artwork showing Swift recreating Friedrich Wilhelm Theodor Heyser’s 1900 painting The Death of Ophelia.
In the far back are posters; one reads Female Rage, the name of a musical Swift trademarked in 2024 as well as a section of her Eras tour she called ‘Female Rage: The Musical’.
Taylor’s reference to the famous Ophelia painting omg this is so beautiful #TheFateofOpheliaMusicVideo pic.twitter.com/Mz78yFj2ho
— Zain (@cowboylikezain) October 5, 2025
However, instead of drowning like Ophelia, Swift gets up and walks into another painting. Several elements in this painting are of interest – a wooden statue resembling her cat Olivia Benson, an orange bird that flies past her from the first painting reappears to perch on her arm, a loaf of sourdough that fans have speculated is meant to point to Swift’s recent interest in baking. On a table in the painting lie a string of pearls and a peach, likely a reference to the title track “The Life of a Showgirl” with lyrics that read “I took her pearls of wisdom” and “You’re sweeter than a peach.”
The scene moves backstage, where Swift changes into what appears to be a tribute to Marilyn Monroe in a red sparkly outfit, accompanied by dancers from her record-breaking Eras Tour.
The key thing to note in this scene for eagle-eyed viewers is a photo of the musician’s fiance Kelce, from his 2016 interview playing Kiss, Marry, Kill, where he chose to “kiss” Swift. Fellow musicians Ariana Grande and Katy Perry landed the “kill” and “marry” spots respectively.
TRYING TO STAY CALM ABOUT THIS EASTER EGG #TheFateofOpheliaMusicVideo pic.twitter.com/osBUckbAXT
— caroline❤️🔥 (@GetawayCaroline) October 5, 2025
HER MIND#TheFateOfOpheliaMusicVideo pic.twitter.com/UXmkNsSvFo
— willnights (@willnights1) October 5, 2025
In another scene set on a ship, Swift appears to reference Arthur Hughes’s 1865 work Ophelia (“And He Will Not Come Back Again”), in a silver dress and long, red hair. As backup dancers force her to walk the plank and Swift jumps off, she reappears in a more modern era, dressed in a synchronised swimmer outfit and holding on to a life raft, a nod to the song’s lyrics: “You dug me out of my grave and saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia.”
“That's a play on the fate of Ophelia, like Ophelia drowned. So we’ve got these lifesavers, these lifesaving devices which could have prevented that from happening,” Swift said when explaining the scene in the film, according to USA Today.
As the scene shifts, a director’s clapboard with multiple Easter eggs appears. Swift appears to be shooting for “Sequins are forever” and is on “Take 100”. The phrase “Take 100” could be a combination of Kelce’s football jersey number 87 and Taylor’s favorite number 13, and has appeared in an Instagram post from July that Kelce posted.
“Featuring Kitty Finlay” is a nod both to Swift’s opera singer grandmother Marjorie Finlay and the titular showgirl character from “The Life of a Showgirl.”
As the clapboard moves, Swift appears, resembling track two subject Elizabeth Taylor, with 12 boxes behind her, each carrying initials of the 12 tracks from the album.
At one point in the video, Swift catches a football as she sings “Pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes”, and enters a hotel room numbered 87, both clear allusions to the Kansas City Chiefs tight end and her fiance Kelce.
She caught the football and walked into door number 87 🥹❤️🔥 #TheFateofOpheliaMusicVideo pic.twitter.com/pSUpXTSCvj
— allie “hi babe!” ❤️🔥 (@TSwizzleStruck) October 5, 2025
One of dancers passes Swift by, holding a purse with a chihuahua in it, a blink-and-you-miss-it wink to “Actually Romantic,” which fans have speculated is a diss track aimed at Charli XCX. In “Actually Romantic,” Swift refers to the subject of the song as a “toy chihuahua barking at me from a tiny purse”.
the chihuahua barking in a tiny purse 😭😭😭 #TheFateofOpheliaMusicVideo pic.twitter.com/HpdmB3jCNt
— Zain (@cowboylikezain) October 5, 2025
The video ends with Swift in a bathtub, the image from her album cover, a reference to the 1851 painting of Ophelia by John Everett Millais. On the floor lies an Oscar, a reference from track eight “Wi$h Li$t”. The lyrics read: “They want that complex female character / They want that critical smash Palme d’Or / and an Oscar on their bathroom floor.”
By the bathtub is also an Opalite rock, track three of the album and a song that Swift has said is dedicated to Kelce, whose birthstone is an opal.
Swift ends the video in the bathtub, but with her face held above the water line, implying she will not share the “fate of Ophelia”.
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