Taylor Swift's "You Need to Calm Down" Music Video Features a Cameo From Katy Perry
As promised, Taylor Swift delivered the music video for her latest single, “You Need to Calm Down,” this morning—and it’s packed with famous faces and a lot of color.
Over the weekend, Swift released a list of some of her celebrity friends who appear in the video, like all the guys from Queer Eye, Ellen DeGeneres, Ryan Reynolds, Pose‘s Billy Porter, RuPaul, and Ciara.
But one name was conspicuously left off the list: Katy Perry. That’s right: Katy Perry, dressed in her Met Gala burger costume, reunites with Taylor Swift, who’s dressed as an order of fries. The two approach each other hesitantly, but then end up awkwardly slow-dancing like you did back in middle school. Rumors began swirling over the weekend that Perry would appear in Swift’s video, and that they kissed during their burger-fry dance. But Swift shut this down, saying, “To be an ally is to understand the difference between advocating and baiting.” It turns out that the fast food concept was true—just not the kiss.
We already knew these two were back to being friends after the cookie peace offering seen ’round the world, but now it’s officially official. Does this mean Swift will be making an appearance in an upcoming Perry video? We hope so.
“A happy meal,” Swift captioned a photo of her and Perry on Twitter.
“This meal is BEEF-free #MeatFreeMonday ?♥️?,” Perry wrote on Instagram.
Swift wants to celebrate all the friends she asked to be in the video. “The #YNTCDmusicvideo is out! First, I want to say that my co-stars in this video are AMAZING. Please celebrate by supporting their work, following them, and going to see them perform. I’m SO grateful and SO EXCITED I ACTUALLY DO NEED TO CALM DOWN,” she tweeted, before going on to tag them all in subsequent posts.
But what of all the other Swiftian references in the video? There, naturally, are many. Here’s a rundown of some of the best ones.