The 'Anti-Hero' singer casts transgender actor and activist Laith Ashley De La Cruz as her love interest in the newly-released visuals for the second single off her album 'Midnights'.
- Jan 27, 2023
AceShowbiz - Taylor Swift is giving the second single off her latest album "Midnights" a music video treatment. The country-turned-pop superstar has just released the visuals for "Lavender Haze", hours after teasing it on social media.
The 33-year-old, who tried to address her eating disorder issue in "Anti-Hero" music video but ended up facing backlash, is perhaps going to be hailed a hero by LGBTQ+ community for celebrating inclusion this time. She cast transgender actor and activist Laith Ashley De La Cruz as her love interest in the clip.
The video opens with Swift being awakened at midnight, with De La Cruz still sleeping soundly next to her. From there, she has fun with herself, dancing in a smokey room and soaking wet in purple-colored water, before she reunites with her man, sitting in the middle of the room while surrounded by people of various different backgrounds. The couple then dances with purple smoke in the air.
"There is lots of lavender. There is lots of haze. There is my incredible costar @laith_ashley who I absolutely adored working with," Swift wrote in a tweet upon the video's release. She added, "This was the first video I wrote out of the 3 that have been released, and this one really helped me conceptualize the world and mood of Midnights, like a sultry sleepless 70's fever dream. Hope you like it."
Serving as the follow-up to "Anti-Hero", "Lavender Haze" is taking its title from a "Mad Men" episode. "I happened upon the phrase 'Lavender Haze' when I was watching 'Mad Men', and I looked it up because I thought it sounded cool," the Grammy Award-winning artist said ahead of the album's release in October 2022.
She shared, "And it turns out that it's a common phrase used in the '50s, where they would just describe being in love. If you were in the lavender haze, then that meant that you were in that all-encompassing love glow, and I thought that was really beautiful."
The "Blank Space" hitmaker explained that "Lavender Haze" is about being set on "doing whatever it takes to stay" in the love-drunk whirlwind despite the fishbowl that she lives in on a daily basis. "I think a lot of people have to deal with this now, not just like 'public figures,' because we live in the era of social media. And if the world finds out that you're in love with somebody, they're gonna weigh in on it," she said. "Like my relationship for six years, we've had to dodge weird rumors, tabloid stuff, and we just ignore it. And so this song is sort of about the act of ignoring that stuff to protect the real stuff."
