Taylor Swift loves a good mystery.
From the countless Easter eggs she drops for fans to releasing albums like The Life of a Showgirl without any singles ahead of time, Swift tends to shield her next moves in cloak-and-dagger secrecy. Now that secrecy has extended to her upcoming music video for The Life of a Showgirl‘s Shakespeare-inspired lead single, “The Fate of Ophelia.”
For her past two non-rerecorded albums, Swift released videos for her lead singles — Midnights‘ “Anti-Hero” and The Tortured Poets Department‘s “Fortnight” — on YouTube on the same day as their album’s release. For “The Fate of Ophelia,” though, fans will have to go to movie theaters first to experience Swift’s next music video, where it’s playing as part of The Official Release Party of a Showgirl. Running from Oct. 3 to Oct. 5, the 89-minute long film also features behind-the-scenes footage of “The Fate of Ophelia” video, breakdowns of The Life of a Showgirl‘s songs, and brand-new lyric videos.
But when will fans who can’t make The Official Release Party of a Showgirl be able to see “The Fate of Ophelia”?
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When does “The Fate of Ophelia” premiere on YouTube?
Written and directed by Swift, “The Fate of Ophelia” music video premieres on YouTube Sunday, Oct. 5 at 7 p.m. ET. The release coincides with Swift’s fiancé Travis Kelce’s 36th birthday.
In the song, Swift sings about how Kelce saved her heart from the fate of Hamlet‘s tragic heroine Ophelia, who is driven mad when Hamlet spurns her, then drowns. Fittingly, in the pre-chorus, Swift sings, “If you’d never come for me / I might’ve drowned in the melancholy.”
The Swift-Ophelia connection doesn’t just stop with “The Fate of Ophelia,” though. The album cover of The Life of a Showgirl, which sees Swift partially submerged in water, is a reference to painter John Everett Millais’ 19th-century painting “Ophelia,” which depicts Ophelia lying in a river.
According to Swift’s interview with BBC Radio 1, “The Fate of Ophelia” music video was also inspired Millais’ painting, bringing the Ophelia reference full circle.
The Official Release Party of a Showgirl is in theaters from Oct. 3 to Oct. 5.
