Taylor Swift's Newest Music Video Is Already Controversial

Update, 12:14 p.m.: After briefly going offline, the video is back up on Swift’s official Vevo page. Vevo and Swift’s representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

For the fifth single off her album Reputation,Taylor Swift has returned, in a way, to her roots. The video for “Delicate,” which premiered during the iHeartRadio Music Awards on Sunday night, shows the goofy Taylor who defined her persona about a decade ago—flailing around in erratic dance moves, making silly faces, and presenting herself as the girl who just wants to be included. In what has also become true Taylor Swift fashion, though, she’s already facing some backlash, and accusations that the video is treading too far into Spike Jonze’s territory.

As some Twitter users were quick to note, the video has some similarities to a 2016 commercial that Jones directed for a Kenzo World perfume ad featuring The Leftovers actress Margaret Qualley. In the ad, Qualley pulls silly faces and dances enthusiastically, while Swift, in her video, does the same. Both are at a formal event, where they both appear to break out of their expected roles and into their own unique dance.

Following the video’s release, Twitter users called out the video’s similarities to the Kenzo ad, even pulling screenshots for proof.

Billboard seemed to think that Swift is channeling Britney Spears’s 2000 music video “Lucky,” as Swift dances around, “clearly disturbed by her fame” as a young Britney once was. But the publication also notes that she looks a little like Sia’smuse, Maddie Ziegler.

Regardless of whom or what Swift resembles in this video, she seemed to only be looking ahead as she teases her stadium tour, which begins May 8.

“To the fans, for everything that you have done and always do and continue to do, you’re the best. I cannot wait to see you on tour; I’m actually in rehearsals right now and that’s why I’m not there,” she said before introducing “Delicate.” Ready or not, here she comes.

Full ScreenPhotos:Introducing Austin Swift, Budding Actor (and Brother of Taylor)

Let's block ads! (Why?)