Taylor Swift Drops Lush ‘Elizabeth Taylor’ Video Paying Homage To Star

Taylor Swift pays homage to one of the most iconic stars of screen in the new video for her The Life of a Showgirl track “Elizabeth Taylor.” The visual dropped on Tuesday morning (March 31) and, like her previous videos from the album, it was available only on Spotify and Apple Music, with no version uploaded to YouTube at present.

Unlike so many of Swift’s colorful, story-centered videos, the “Elizabeth Taylor” visual consists of a series of clips from Taylor’s most beloved films, with Swift entirely absent from the proceedings. The mega-mix of Taylor films cut together include bits from such big screen hallmarks as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Cleopatra, Father of the Bride, Giant, A Place in the Sun and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” among others.

Also included in the montage are glimpses of the legendary actress in newsreel footage in which she’s draped in her signature jewels and glamorous outfits during public appearances and paparazzi shots. Among the other films excerpted in the video are: Elephant Walk, Boom!, Julia Misbehaves, Love Is Better Than Ever, Rhapsody and Suddenly Last Summer.

“Elizabeth Taylor” is the latest single from Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl album. The song paying homage to the Hollywood legend follows on the heels of the first two radio singles from the singer’s 12th studio album, “The Fate of Ophelia” and “Opalite.”

“Oftentimes it doesn’t feel so glamorous to be me/ All the right guys promised they’d stay/ Under bright lights, they withered away, but you bloom,” Swift sings on the song, which features the chorus, “I’d cry my eyes violet, Elizabeth Taylor/Tell me for real, do you think it’s forever?/ Been number one, but I never had two/ And I can’t have fun if I can’t have/ Be my NY whеn Hollywood hates me/ You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby/ Been numbеr one, but I never had two/ And I can’t have fun if I can’t have you.”

Upon the album’s release in October, Swift said she asked permission from the Taylor estate to pay tribute in the song to the Oscar-winning actress who died in 2011 at age 73 — when Swift was just 21 — explaining that because she was writing about a real person she did her due diligence and “we go to their family and their estate and let them know and they were lovely about it.”

The video credits include a thank you to the House of Taylor & the Elizabeth Taylor Trust, as well as the Todd and Wilding families; Taylor’s son is Christopher Wilding and Taylor’s third husband was Mike Todd.

Describing the song on The Tonight Show around the album’s release, Swift said, “I love her so much. She is, I think, the ultimate sort of icon/role model that I look to when I look at somebody who had immense pressure on them, was extremely scrutinized, everything that she ever did. She kept making more and more daring art. It’s almost like the more polarizing people were about her, the more she just kept doing even more challenging roles, taking bigger risks.”

The song was co-written and co-produced by Swift with Max Martin and Shellback.