Taylor Swift is dancing through the lightning strikes in her “Opalite” music video.
The video began with a fictional ’80s-style commercial for a cleaning spray that can “magically [transform] your problems into your paradise,” that Swift, 36, watched on TV. The video then featured Swift sitting on a playground set and in her house alone, making a fortune teller and a “Friends 4 Ever” friendship bracelet for a rock. Her onscreen luck changed when she was magically summoned by her music video love interest, an accident-prone singleton played by Domhnall Gleeson. The actor, 42, and Swift even perform a choreographed routine in matching teal sweatsuits for judges like Eras dancer Kam Saunders.
The footage also featured cameos by Lewis Capaldi, who played a photographer taking Gleeson and Swift’s portrait, and Graham Norton as an Opalite spray salesman.
Swift both wrote and directed the “Opalite” music video after conceptualizing it during her October 2025 appearance on Norton’s talk show.
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“My favorite part about writing is that first spark of an idea. It can happen at any time, for any reason. The idea for the ‘Opalite’ music video crash landed into my imagination when I was doing promo for The Life of a Showgirl,” she wrote via Instagram on Friday, February 6. “I was a guest on one of my favorite shows, @TheGrahamNortonShowOfficial. For those of you who aren’t familiar, it’s a UK late night show where Graham Norton (the insanely charismatic and lovable host) invites a random group of actors, entertainers, musicians, etc to be on his show and we all sit there and chat like it’s a dinner party. They even serve wine. Anyway. I remember thinking I got ridiculously lucky with the group I was paired with. Cillian Murphy, Domhnall Gleeson, Greta Lee, @JodieSmith and @LewisCapaldi. All people whose work I’ve admired from afar. 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*.”
She continued, “And so a week later he received an email script I’d written for the ‘Opalite’ video, where he was playing the starring role. 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. To my delight, everyone from the show made the effort to time travel back to the 90’s with us and help with this video. You might even recognize some friendly faces from The Eras Tour.”
Hours earlier, Swift debuted a new countdown on her website.
“The ‘Opalite’ music video will be available to watch on Apple Music and Spotify, included in premium, starting 8 a.m. ET on 2/6,” her website read beginning on Wednesday, February 4. “[It] will be available to watch on YouTube beginning 8 a.m. ET on 2/8.”
“Opalite” is Swift’s second single from her latest studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, following “The Fate of Ophelia.” The album and the “Fate of Ophelia” music video were released in October 2025.
“‘Opalite’ is a song [where] that word is something I wrote down because I thought it was beautiful,” Swift said during her Release Party of a Showgirl screening. “I came back to it when [Max Martin, Shellback and I] were writing to this really infectious, hook-y track.”
She continued, “Opalite is man-made opal, so I’ve always loved opals [and] my mom has always loved opals. It’s, kind of, like, our thing — one of our many things. I loved the metaphor of, like, a manmade opal and you also have to make your own happiness in your life. You had to get yourself through some difficult times to get to the positive place you’re in now.”
Swift wrote and recorded The Life of a Showgirl during the European leg of her Eras Tour in 2024, chronicling her life between concerts and her relationship with now-fiancé Travis Kelce.
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“Opalite” is also one of the Showgirl tracks presumed to be inspired by Swift’s romance with Kelce, 36, considering his birthstone is an opal.
“He loves that one,” Swift said on the U.K.’s Capital FM radio show in October 2025, further detailing her lyrical inspiration. “I have favorite words, favorite phrases [and] things I’ll put in an endless file of lyrics that I’m constantly going to go and cherry-pick from when I’m writing. I had written down the word ‘opalite’ because I learned it’s actually man-made opal.”
In the song, Swift details her one-time failed romances to finding The One.
“I had a bad habit / Of missing lovers past / My brother used to call it / Eating out of the trash / It’s never gonna last,” she sings in the first verse. “I thought my house was haunted / I used to live with ghosts / And all the perfect couples said, ‘When you know you know / And when you don’t you don’t.’”
Swift later adds, “Shelter here with me, my love / Thunder like a drum / This life will beat you up, up, up, up / This is just a temporary speed bump / But failure brings you freedom / And I can bring you love.”
Swift and the Kansas City Chiefs tight end, who even called “Opalite” his favorite song from The Life of a Showgirl, have been together since summer 2023. They got engaged two years later in August 2025.
The “Opalite” music video is currently available to stream on Apple Music and Spotify, and will premiere on YouTube Sunday, February 8, at 8 a.m. ET.
