- Taylor Swift released the official music video for her The Life of a Showgirl track, “Opalite,” on Friday, Feb. 6.
- The video includes cameos from Cillian Murphy, Domhnall Gleeson, Greta Lee, Jodie Turner-Smith, and Lewis Capaldi.
- She only dropped the music video on Spotify and Apple Music for a specific reason, but it’ll hit YouTube soon.
Taylor Swift is back at it again with another music video, which means we’re frantically scrambling to find every Easter egg, learn some choreo, and track down some of her outfits. It’s simply the life of a Swiftie, and if you get it, you get it!
Tay surprised fans with the sweet rom-com-inspired music video for “Opalite”—aka her ode to fiancé, Travis Kelce—on Friday, February 6, and fans noticed she switched up her uploading process. Instead of dropping the project on her Vevo channel via YouTube, the Grammy winner decided to make use of Apple Music and Spotify’s new music video feature.
Ofc, Taylor Swift is Taylor Swift, so she had a good reason behind the move—and it has to do with the Billboard Hot 100 chart (ya know, the very one that she consistently tops every album cycle). It’s likely because YouTube streams no longer count for the Billboard chart as of 2026.
“Billboard uses an outdated formula that weights subscription-supported streams higher than ad-supported,” YouTube’s global head of music Lyor Cohen wrote in a statement, per The Hollywood Reporter. “This doesn’t reflect how fans engage with music today and ignores the massive engagement from fans who don’t have a subscription. Streaming is the primary way people experience music, making up 84 percent of U.S. recorded music revenue. We’re simply asking that every stream is counted fairly and equally, whether it is subscription-based or ad-supported—because every fan matters and every play should count.”
Oh, and fun fact on “Opalite”: Taylor tapped Cillian Murphy, Domhnall Gleeson, Greta Lee, Jodie Turner-Smith, and Lewis Capaldi to star in the video after they all appeared on The Graham Norton Show together back in October 2025 while she was promoting The Life of a Showgirl.
“When we were all talking during the broadcast, Domhnall made a light hearted joke about wanting to be in one of my music videos. He’s Irish! He was joking! Except that in that moment during the interview, I was instantly struck with an *idea*. And so a week later he received an email script I’d written for the Opalite video, where he was playing the starring role,” she wrote, in part. “I had this thought that it would be wild if all of our fellow guests on the Graham Norton show that night, including Graham himself, could be a part of it too. Like a school group project but for adults and it isn’t mandatory.”
Anyway! That doesn’t mean you can’t watch the video on YouTube eventually. According to several reports, the video will start streaming on the platform on Sunday, February 8.
In the meantime, you can still watch it on Apple Music and Spotify. Both platforms require subscriptions. Spotify has a free two-month trial right now and costs $12.99 per month after that, while Apple Music has a free three-month trial, and there are multiple plans to choose from once it’s up.
