Decoding Every Easter Egg In Taylor's "Fate Of Ophelia" Music Video
The mastermind has done it again.
Taylor Swift has returned to the peak of her Easter egg-hiding power. Although her last era, The Tortured Poets Department, was famously lacking in terms of music video output, Swift is embracing visuals to a whole new degree on The Life of a Showgirl. She premiered the album’s first music video, “The Fate of Ophelia,” in theaters on Oct. 3, before releasing it widely on Oct. 5. That’s a very special date for two important people in Swift’s life... who both get clever shoutouts among the many Easter eggs in the reference-filled video.
As expected, Swift’s Showgirl era is heavily inspired by her two years touring the globe on her Eras Tour in 2023 and 2024, and “The Fate of Ophelia” really leans into the backstage antics. As Swift traverses multiple elaborate film sets and glitzy costume changes, she sings about how the love of her fiancé Travis Kelce saved her from the devastating ending of a Shakespearean tragedy.
The lyrics themselves contain loving Easter eggs about her relationship with Kelce — particularly the meaningful “keep it 100” line — but it’s the jam-packed music video where Swift really does her best masterminding.
1. The Showgirl Album Cover (And Its Artistic Inspo)
The artistic inspiration for “The Fate of Ophelia” bookends the music video. At the beginning Swift is posed to recreate Sir John Everett Millais’ 19th century painting “Ophelia.” The pop star confirmed this painting is the reference for The Life of a Showgirl album cover. And at the end of the video, Swift lays down in a half-filled bathtub, recreating the record’s partially submerged cover art.
2. The Toy Chihuahua
Swift added even more fuel to Showgirl’s most incendiary feud rumor later in the music video, when a woman appears for a split-second holding a tiny chihuahua in her handbag. The pet prop is an allusion to Swift’s lyrics in “Actually Romantic,” in which she tells an obsessive frenemy (rumored to be Charli XCX) that her barbs aren’t as vicious as they seem, likening the bad-mouthing to “a toy chihuahua barking at me from a tiny purse.”
3. The Photo Of Marjorie
Although it’s hard to see in the video, Swift’s behind-the-scenes pics on Instagram confirm that a photo of her grandmother Marjorie Finlay is posted on her mirror in the video’s dressing room sequence. Finlay was something of a showgirl herself, having been a popular opera singer in the mid-1900s. Swift has reflected on her profound connection to Finlay before on her evermore track “marjorie.” To add to this bond even more, Swift released “The Fate of Ophelia” video on Finlay’s birthday.
4. The Meaning Of Kitty Finlay
The Finlay name appears once more in the clapboard that’s held up to the camera towards the middle of “Ophelia,” which reveals Swift is playing a character named Kitty Finlay. That name is a reference to her mother’s dog, Kitty, whom she adopted after being diagnosed with cancer in 2015.
Kitty Finlay also shows up in another part of the Showgirl album — Swift sings about a fictional dancer named Kitty in the final track, “The Life of a Showgirl.”
The clapboard also has another nod to Swift and Kelce’s couple number, 100 (13 + 87), as well as a cheeky play on the 1971 James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, with Kitty’s version being Sequins Are Forever.
5. The Specific Photo Of Travis Kelce
Like Swift’s grandma, Kelce also gets a photo on Swift’s mirror in the “Ophelia” video — his birthday also happened to be the day that the video dropped. However, the specific photo chosen is what really makes this Easter egg so great. Fans noticed the shot seems to be taken from a 2016 interview in which Kelce played “Kill, Marry, Kiss” with pop stars, and eagerly answered he’d like to kiss Swift.
6. The Football
Easter eggs don’t get more obvious than this. To really drive home the line, “Pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes,” in the “Ophelia” chorus, Swift catches a football while singing the phrase, “your team.” Are the Kansas City Chiefs looking for any new receivers?
7. The Hotel Room Number
After catching the football, Swift enters a hotel room with the number 87 on the door, a shoutout to Kelce’s jersey number.
8. The Orange Bird (& Other Props)
At the start of “The Fate of Ophelia,” Swift poses into one more painting, which features a few of her well-known personal loves. She showed off her well-documented love of sourdough bread by baking the loaf that appears in the video, and gave her three cats a shoutout with a feline statue. The peach is a reference to the song “The Life of a Showgirl,” in which Kitty tells Swift she’s “sweeter than a peach.”
But the most interesting Easter egg is the orange bird, which seems to tie into Showgirl’s connection to Reputation. Fans have pointed out that the bird (which is also seen flying across the screen at the very start and very end of the video) could represent Swift’s Reputation era, since she dressed in orange while trapped in a gilded birdcage in the “Look What You Made Me Do” music video.
9. The Eras Tour Dancers
The Eras Tour inspiration is especially strong once the tour’s dancers start popping up throughout the “Ophelia” video. In the pirate-ship scene, a few of Swift’s most well-known dancers reference iconic parts of the tour, like Kam Saunders’ close connection with Swift, and Jan Ravnik entering on a ladder to signal to his famous “Lavender Haze” dance.
10. The Chair Choreo
Swift didn’t only bring her dancer from the Eras Tour back, she also revived some of its choreography. As Swift and her fellow showgirls dance while sitting on chairs in the dressing room, the section is reminiscent of her chair-centric “Vigilante Sh*t” Eras Tour set.
11. The Hidden Tracklist
It’s hard to look at anything else when Swift is entangled in a stunning rope dress, but in the background of this setpiece, the initials of each The Life of a Showgirl song is written in order on the chalkboard.
