Taylor Swift has built a reputation for spilling the tea on her famous exes and enemies in her biggest hits, but she is also known to have recruited high-profile names to appear in her music videos.
“Bad Blood,” a song from the 30-year-old Grammy winner’s 1989 album, takes the prize for Swift’s most star-studded and iconic music video to date. Like the song, the visual follows the Pennsylvania native’s feud with a woman played by Selena Gomez, who was rumored to be a stand-in for Swift’s real-life ex-nemesis Katy Perry.
As the dueling ladies physically go to war, Swift recruits the best of the best to fight alongside her. Lena Dunham, Gigi Hadid, Hayley Williams, Kendrick Lamar, Hailee Steinfeld, Cara Delevingne and Karlie Kloss were among the video’s star-studded cast.
Swift opened up about “Bad Blood” in a 2014 Rolling Stone profile, during which she detailed what led to the feud. “She did something so horrible. I was like, ‘Oh, we’re just straight-up enemies.’ And it wasn’t even about a guy,” Swift recalled. “It had to do with business. She basically tried to sabotage an entire arena tour. She tried to hire a bunch of people out from under me.“
Swift’s second-most star-studded music video came in 2019. At the time, she debuted her LGBTQ-pride anthem, “You Need to Calm Down,” a track from her seventh studio album. For this visual, she recruited Ellen DeGeneres, Ryan Reynolds, RuPaul, Ciara, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and many more.
The most surprising celebrity appearance in “You Need to Calm Down” came toward the very end when Perry, 34, popped up in a hamburger costume. Swift, for her part, complimented the “Never Worn White” singer’s outfit by dressing up as french fries.
Taking a trip down memory lane, many of Swift’s older music videos have featured a noteworthy face in the role of her love interest. Scott Eastwood was Swift’s romantic pursuit in 2014’s “Wildest Dreams,” while Lucas Till notably played the boy next door in “You Belong With Me.”
For more on Swift’s star-studded music videos, check out Us Weekly’s video above!
