Taylor Swift pays homage to Elizabeth Taylor with surprise music video

Taylor Swift has surprised fans by releasing a new music video for her song Elizabeth Taylor, assembled from hours of footage of the late screen goddess.

Swift does not appear in the video, instead compiling a "supercut" of scenes from the late actress's films, alongside archive clips and newsreels showing the star being hounded by paparazzi.

The clips include shots from films such as Cleopatra, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and the cult classic Boom!, in which Taylor plays a six-times-divorcee who is visited by the angel of death.

Swift previously spoke of her admiration for the star, saying: "Role models are pretty hard to come by, but I would say she is one of mine."

Born in London in 1932, Taylor was one of the 20th Century's biggest movie stars, noted for her unique beauty and her portrayals of volatile and strong-willed characters.

At one time the highest-paid actress in the world, she also garnered attention for her tangled love life.

Speaking to the Elvis Duran show last year, Swift explained how she was inspired to write about Taylor on her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl.

"She is always someone that I've looked up to as being this very glamorous, very beloved, but for some reason a polarising figure [and] I found myself in that place, too.

"She was under a microscope so, so intense and she handled it with humour and she got along with her life," she added in a separate interview with Amazon Music.

"She continued to make incredible art and so this is a love song kind of through the lens of the motif of what she had to go through in her life and sort of the parallels that I feel in my own life."

Lyrics in the song include clear references to Taylor's life. It opens in Portofino, the Italian town where the actor Richard Burton first proposed to her - and where she spent four of her eight honeymoons.

The lyric, "I'll cry my eyes violet", refers to the star's famously entrancing eyes; and the line "what could you possibly get for the girl who has everything" namechecks one of her films.

Swift received permission from the estate of Taylor, who died in 2011 at the age of 73, to release the song and to use her likeness in the music video.

Royalties earned when the video is streamed will go to the actress's estate, which oversees her archive and the Elizabeth Taylor Aids Foundation.

"My family loves the song, and grandma would have loved it, too," said Taylor's grandson, Quinn Tivey, when the song came out last year. "I wish she could have heard it."

He continued: "Taylor Swift not only made a beautiful homage to Elizabeth Taylor, but it feels like she is addressing her directly while invoking her legacy in a way that is dimensional, confessional, honest, and fun.

"It dances across the trappings of fame and the rollercoaster of falling in love and has so many heartfelt references, from the iconic perfume White Diamonds to her jewellery and, of course, her love of love."

At the end of the video, some eagle-eyed fans spotted that, although the song was first released in October 2025, the credits read "©2024 Taylor Swift" - confirming that she wrote the track while on the road with her blockbuster Eras tour.

As with Swift's recent video for Opalite - which starred Graham Norton and Lewis Capaldi - the promotional clip for Elizabeth Taylor is initially exclusive to Spotify and Apple Music, and will not be uploaded to YouTube until Thursday.

Industry analysts have speculated that the decision not to upload it to YouTube is due to a change in the US chart rules, which means songs streamed on the site no longer count towards the Top 100.

The BBC has asked Swift's team for clarification but has yet to receive a response.

The release comes 24 hours after Swift was sued by a writer, who says the singer infringed her trademark.

In a lawsuit filed on Monday in California federal court, Maren Wade, who writes a column in the Las Vegas Weekly called Confessions of a Showgirl, alleged that Swift had "eroded" the value of her trademark by releasing an album with a similar title.

"A solo performer who spent 12 years building a brand shouldn't have to watch it disappear because someone bigger came along," Wade said.

Swift and her label Universal Music Group, which is also named as a defendant, are yet to comment on the lawsuit.