Entertainment

You're Dead Wrong If You Think Taylor's "...Ready For It?" Video Is About Kanye

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Even years after their jaw-dropping moment at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, the Taylor Swift and Kanye West feud just won't quit — or, at least, not the discussions surrounding it. But at midnight on Friday when the singer released her latest video, one thing was settled: the naked Taylor Swift in "...Ready For It?" isn't about Kanye after all, despite a popular fan theory that it could be a reference to his "Famous" video.

For the record, this theory came out before the video actually dropped. That's because in the "...Ready For It?" trailer Swift shared on Monday, there's a moment where she's in a nude bodysuit. Fans swore that her body resembled her wax figure in West's "Famous" video, which shows a slew of celebs laying in bed together naked. One person tweeted, "It’s pretty clear now that Taylor being 'naked' in the Ready For It video is in reference to Kanye’s Famous one. If so, I’m stanning forever." Another speculated, "#ReadyForItMusicVideo I guess the naked body suit part if a huge FU to Kanye's Famous MV. She is the only one who's in consent of her body!"

But once the full video came out, things became a lot more clear. The video seems to be about Swift becoming more powerful and transforming herself, rather than singling out any particular person. If anything, it's about her letting go of old Taylor. (Remember that whole line about the old Taylor being "dead" from "Look What You Made Me Do"? It's like a continuation of that theme.)

The thing is, Swift is so much more than her "feud" with Kanye. And as she memorably said in her 2016 Grammys speech, she's not about to let people take credit for where she is now or just how far she's come. Swift told the Grammys crowd at the time,

"There are going to be people along the way who will try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame, but, if you just focus on the work and you don't let those people sidetrack you, someday when you get where you're going you'll look around and you will know that it was you and the people who love you who put you there."

It also feels like a fitting quote for anyone who tries to pin the video as a reference to Kanye, when ultimately it seems to be all about her own transformation.

If anything, it's a little frustrating that people automatically made Swift being naked (or in a nude bodysuit) something associated with West. As a matter of fact, this brings to mind key point: Ultimately it's Swift's body and it is her decision — and her decision only — whether or not to show it in a music video. "...Ready For It?" is far different than West featuring a naked lookalike of Swift in his video, in the very song where he sings, "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / I made that b*tch famous."

In this new video, Swift seems to be taking back control of her image, breaking free of the box (in this case, a literal one) that society has put her in. And if that means letting go of all the Kanye drama too, even better. As seen in the video, the trapped naked Taylor escapes, destroys the darker version of herself, and ends the video ready to move on.

While there are plenty of fans who watched and reacted on Twitter with confusion (i.e. "I have no idea what just happened"), there are others who theorized about the meaning behind naked Taylor. All of the tweets above get at the same idea — she's fiercer and freer, and no, there's not a single mention of Kanye.