Taylor Swift is opening up about exactly what inspired her to write her new song “Patient Zero.”
“The story behind me writing the song ‘Patient Zero’ is that I was hanging out with a bunch of friends, and one of my friends told us that she had been reached out to by the new girlfriend of an ex of hers, asking for guidance on if she had had the same experiences with this guy,” Swift, 36, told the U.K.’s Capital FM on Friday, September 25.
According to Swift, “everyone” in the group “immediately started saying, like, ‘Oh, I’ve been through that too,’ and telling the stories of when this kind of reach out had happened for them.”
The Grammy winner noted that she was “really proud” she “got to explore” a scenario like this in a song.
“I thought to myself, ‘If this has happened to all of us, it’s such an interesting kind of angle on humanity and on relationships, and I wonder if I could write something from the perspective of getting this phone call, and really only from the perspective and the side of the phone call of the ex who’s been through it before,'” she explained.
Swift announced the new single on Tuesday, September 22, before revealing she was dropping three more tracks as part of an extended version of her 2025 album, The Life of a Showgirl.
“About a year ago, you guys did a truly unfathomable thing,” she wrote via Instagram on Wednesday, September 23. “Something that completely blew my mind… You gave The Life of a Showgirl the biggest first week for an album in history. I took a trip to Sweden to celebrate with Max and Shellback, my two collaborators on this album.”
She continued, “Really we just wanted to reflect and take in how grateful we were for the moment we were in, but there was a studio there and we did what we do when we feel anything at all: We wrote more songs. I hope you love them, because they were born out of pure gratitude for your exuberance for and celebration of the album we made.”
The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore includes “Patient Zero,” “Cleveland!” (an obvious shout-out to her husband, Travis Kelce), “Pink Clouding” and “Babylon.”
If those announcements weren’t enough, Swift also revealed that the music video for “Patient Zero” — which stars Dakota Johnson and Colin Farrell — will debut at the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday, September 27.
“Taylor and I have been friends for a really long time, and we’re very close,” Johnson, 36, told Fan Girl Nation on Thursday, September 24. “And we decided to work together, and it’s great.”
The actress teased, “Normally, I would say don’t work with your friends, but we work really well together.”
