Taylor Swift Shot A "King Of My Heart" Video That Was Never Released
Could it come out of the vault for Rep (TV)?
Taylor Swift may have put a damper on all that Reputation (Taylor’s Version) buzz recently, but a surprising new revelation about her darkest era has fans back to clamoring for that vault to finally open. Her frequent video collaborator, Joseph Kahn, just dropped the bomb that he and Swift “completely shot” a video for a beloved Reputation track, but the visuals have still never seen the light of day nearly a decade later. While the “King of My Heart” video wound up being scrapped, this new lore drop could have some major implications for the eventual Reputation (Taylor’s Version) release.
Kahn confirmed he and Swift filmed a music video for “King of My Heart” that was shelved back in 2017. While speaking about the eight videos he directed for Swift during the July 24 episode of the Ourselves podcast, the videographer said, “There was actually a ninth music video that we scrapped.”
“We actually shot for ‘King of My Heart,’” Kahn revealed. Apparently, this would have served as the second video released for Reputation, but Swift decided to give that spot to the single “Ready for It?” instead. “We started shooting it. We never finished it, because she switched gears in the middle of it to do ‘Ready for It?’ ... She decided ‘Ready for It?’ was a better single, and just decided to go that way instead.”
While the booming synths and imposing chants of the darker-sounding “Ready for It?” do seem to make more sense as an introduction to the overall vibe of Reputation, it’s upsetting to learn that the more romantic and uplifting fan-fave “King of My Heart” came so close to the spotlight only for its video to be hidden away. The love song stands out as one of Rep’s most tender odes to the beginnings of her romance with Joe Alwyn, which would go on to be Swift’s longest public relationship.
Kahn described the video for “King of My Heart” as “very conceptual,” noting that while they had filmed everything for the visuals, there were plans to include a lot of post-production effects, which never got finished. “Completely shot video, just the visual effects [weren’t done],” Kahn said. “Because it was highly visual effects. Never finished.”
While this video has been sitting on a shelf since 2017, there’s a chance it could resurface with a Reputation re-release. Though Swift hinted she’s not close at all to giving the album the (Taylor’s Version) treatment — “I haven’t even re-recorded a quarter of it,” she wrote in May 2025 — she also teased that “there will be a time” to open the vault for Rep at some point in the future.
