Entertainment

The Tom Hiddleston Reference In "Look What You Made Me Do" Is So Darn Sneaky Until You Notice It

by Lia Beck

With so much going on in the video for "Look What You Made Me Do" by Taylor Swift, you probably need a tour guide just to process your feelings. That said, there is one detail that you may have missed the meaning behind: the "I Heart T.S." shirts on her background dancers.

There's a good chance you saw the tops the background dancers are wearing in the video — they definitely make a point of ripping off their jackets to reveal them — but it's what the crop tops mean that is important here.

Back in the summer of 2016, news came out that Swift and Tom Hiddleston were dating, and only a month later, the English actor was spotted at the pop star's infamous 4th of July party wearing a shirt that said "I Heart T.S." on it. Hiddleston was endlessly mocked for this because, well, he was a grown man wearing a T-shirt with his girlfriend's initials on it in the style of an "I Heart N.Y." shirt. The couple's relationship was already a topic of widespread media attention and some fans even thought that the relationship might be for publicity, so wearing T-shirt of this sort just set off further speculation and media frenzy.

Swift makes a lot of references to other people in her new video, including ones to Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, Beyoncé, and even her many past incarnations, so it's not exactly shocking that she'd go all in and also reference her relationship to Hiddleston. What stands out, though, is that Swift doesn't make a clear comment on the relationship, what was up with the T-shirt Hiddleston wore in the first place, or on people thinking that the relationship was fake. (Hiddleston previously spoke out in an interview with GQ and said that the relationship was real.)

Swift's message in the song is sort of foggy. She talks about the "old Taylor" being dead, but for many listeners that doesn't really seem to be the case. Swift did call out Kimye in a more direct way in the video, but as for the other references, including Hiddleston, it's still not totally clear where she stands or why she's making them.