Hidden Messages in Taylor Swift’s ‘The Fate of Ophelia’ Music Video: Nods to Travis Kelce

Taylor Swift’s music video for ‘The Fate of Ophelia’ was full of hidden messages as well as nods to her fiancé Travis Kelce.

The superstar, 35, released the clip for the lead single from her new album, The Life of a Showgirl, on Sunday, two days after her fans were able to watch it in movie theaters during Swift’s special The Official Release Party of a Showgirl film. 

The video featured a number of Easter eggs for her eagle-eyed Swifties to pick up on.

Among them was a glimpse at hew new-found love for baking sourdough bread and references to William Shakespeare.

The Grammy winner also appeared to channel Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe, after dedicating the second song on her album to iconic actress Elizabeth Taylor.

The singer, who released the video on Kelce’s 36th birthday, also added a number of not-so-secret tributes to the football player, after discussing their sex life on the raunchy track ‘Wood.’

The video is filled with allusions to Ophelia, the tragic former lover of Shakespeare’s Hamlet who ultimately descends into madness and drowns. 

It opens up with Swift embodying Ophelia in a painting, dressed in a white gown and lying in a stylized brook surrounded by flowers.

The imagery also brings to mind the iconic 1851 painting by John Everett Millais, which depicts Ophelia floating in a river just before she drowns.

The ending of the video, which sees Swift submerged in a bathtub while wearing a sparkling showgirl costume, is also a reference to Ophelia. 

The imagery is the same she used for the album cover. 

In another part of the video, the star is seen posing in yet another painting, which is where fans noticed a unique detail. 

In the painting, she is seen in front of a table with a sourdough bread, a peach and a string of pearls on it.

And the star confirmed in The Official Release Party of a Showgirl that the loaf was baked by her.

She told viewers that filming the music video was ‘a really important day for’ her because, ‘My bread is a star.’

Swift recently discussed her new love for baking sourdough bread and gifting it to friends during her debut on Kelce’s New Heights podcast. 

Swift also made plenty of nods to Kelce, even catching a football at one point while singing about pledging ‘allegiance to your team.’

At another point in the clip she was also seen entering a hotel room featuring his jersey number, 87, on the door.

Eagle-eyed fans also noticed the singer included a black-and-white photo of the athlete on a vanity mirror in one of the scenes. 

In yet another scene, Taylor finds herself in a short Marilyn Monroe style blonde wig, with a beauty mark on her face, and wearing a red burlesque bodysuit as she joins a number of similarly dressed dancers backstage. 

Swift also incorporated her Eras Tour dancers, including Raphael Thomas, Kevin Scheitzback and more, into the video.

The star also seemingly referenced other songs from Life of a Showgirl in the video.

In one scene, a black and white movie posted behind her read, ‘Sequins are forever, starring Kitty.’

The line came from the album’s title track, which also mentions Kitty.

Towards the end of the video, when Swift is in the bathtub, there is an Oscar laying discarded on the floor next to her, seemingly a reference to the lyrics from Wi$h Li$t.

In the song she croons, ‘They want that complex female character / They want that critical smash Palme d’Or / and an Oscar on their bathroom floor.’

In another one of her songs, Actually Romantic, Swift appeared to compare singer Charli XCX, to a ‘toy chihuahua barking at me from a tiny purse.’

And in her new video, there is a scene featuring a woman with a tiny dog in her purse.

Swift also appeared to pay homage to her Life of a Showgirl collaborator Sabrina Carpenter.

In one scene she appeared to recreate Carpenter’s Grammys performance this year, where she wore a blue bodysuit.

The singer previously revealed that she had to give Kelce a crash course on the plot of Shakespeare’s tragedy, Hamlet, as he never read it.

While showing off the vinyl to Travis and his brother and co-host, Jason, on their New Heights podcast in August, Swift shared that the first track was titled The Fate Of Ophelia.

Swift also told Jason that her boyfriend ‘might not have read Hamlet’ but that she ‘explained it to him.’

‘Don’t tell my middle school English teacher I didn’t read it. Because I definitely was supposed to,’ the athlete quipped.

Elsewhere on the record Swift shocked fans with her raunchy lyrics to ‘Wood.’

And in the track, the newly engaged singer croons about how she ‘ain’t gotta knock on wood’ since she and her lover can ‘make our own luck.’

‘And baby, I’ll admit I’ve been a little superstitious / The curse on me was broken by your magic wand / Seems to be that you and me, we make our own luck.’

At one point, she even references the NFL star’s podcast with his older brother Jason Kelce as she sings in one of the pre-choruses of the song.

‘New Heights of manhood / I ain’t gotta knock on wood,’ she sings, before adding that ‘His love was the key / That opened my thighs.’

Even at the beginning of the song, she not-so-subtly references her and the football player’s bodies together.

‘Forgive me, it sounds cocky / He ah-matized me / And opened my eyes.’

She sings: ‘Redwood tree / It ain’t hard to see / His love was the key / That opened my thighs.’

The Life of a Showgirl is Swift’s highly-anticipated 12th studio album and the first one that she’s released since the conclusion of her worldwide record-breaking ‘Eras Tour’.

Swift’s last album, The Tortured Poets Department, was finalized and released in the middle of the tour’s 2024 leg.