Fans are gushing over Taylor Swift's co-star in Lavender Haze music video, trans model Laith Ashley
Today, Taylor Swift dropped the new music video for “Lavender Haze,” a track off her “Midnights” album, and in ten hours, it has already racked up over 3.4 million views on YouTube.
The video follows our girl Taylor as she canoodles in her bedroom and a 1970s-themed discotheque, surrounded by varying hues of violet, and tons of psychedelic imagery. Her main costar in the video, which she directed herself (naturally), is Laith Ashley. Ashley is a transgender model, and Swifties are rejoicing in this huge step toward inclusion.
“The love interest in Taylor Swift’s new Lavender Haze music video is trans model and artist Laith Ashley,” one fan gushed. “At a time when trans rights are increasingly under attack, this representation is major.”
GLAAD called Ashley’s inclusion, “incredible.”
Even Swift and Ashley gushed about each other on social media. Swift said she “adored” working with him, while Ashley made sure to call Swift an “ally” to the community.
“Representation matters!” Ashley gushed in his IG post dedicated to the music video and Swift.
Of course, Taylor being Taylor, this wouldn’t be a true Swiftie music video without a few hidden easter eggs for fans to seek out.
“I love to communicate through Easter eggs,” she told Entertainment Weekly in 2019. “I think the best messages are cryptic ones.”
And fans have already sniffed out a few that appear to be references to other songs on the “Midnights” album. Like the lamp shaped like the Eiffel tower, which could be a reference to her song “Paris.” Or the shot of the meteorologist predicting “rain at midnight,” which could be a reference to her song “Midnight Rain.” She is definitely giving a shoutout to her song “Mastermind” when the camera lingers on a vinyl record of the same name, but on the cover are the constellations Sagitarrius and Pisces. Those are the star signs for both her and her Conversations With Friends star boyfriend Joe Alwyn.
Some fans have focussed hard on the massive fish that swim around her house as a nod to the fishbowl she swam in for her “Lovers” music video off her last album. Then there’s an easter egg that appears to have a direct lyrically correlation to another “Midnights” song. In “Maroon,” Swift sings, “"When the morning came we were cleaning incense off your vinyl shelf / 'Cause we lost track of time again." Fans have noticed in the “Lavender Haze” video there’s a shot of incense burning on a vinyl sideboard.
This is like Miley Cyrus “Flowers” level of easter eggs!
