Taylor Swift and Post Malone Pose as Star-Crossed Lovers in 'Fortnight' Music Video: Watch

Following the release of Taylor Swift's 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, the singer-songwriter put out a video for the album’s first single, “Fortnight,” the same day — and it features Easter eggs galore. 

Swift opens the video in solitary confinement, chained to a bed, where she's delivered medication that she reluctantly takes. The singer is unchained, walks over to a mirror, and stares at herself as she wipes away her makeup, exposing face tattoos. Her tattoos disappear once more as the video jumps to Swift in a new setting, and viewers see the rapper's signature ink covered up throughout the start of the video.

Swift then enters an office and sits at her typewriter across from Malone at his own typewriter. As the two sit across from each other, Swift sings, "I love you. It's ruining my life," which is then echoed by the text coming from her typewriter.

The video then jumps to Swift, 34, and Malone, 28, in a barren desert, and Swift runs into his arms — all while hundreds of pieces of paper fly around them.

Then, next time, the chorus begins with, "I love you. It's ruining my life," Swift is seen hooked up to a straight jacket, staring directly at the camera, with scientists — including Malone in glasses, with his tattoos back — tracking her every movement.

As the song transitions to his feature, the two are separated while Swift sits in the rain atop a phone booth, and Malone is distressed on the phone. But as the video concludes, it continues to cut back to a rain-soaked Swift singing and clips of her other personas destroying her surroundings, from wreaking havoc through the file cabinets to trying to escape solitary confinement.

Before audiences can see if she escapes from the other clips, Malone discovers her above the phone booth, and the two finally reconnect.

Actors Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles also appear in the video. Both starred in the 1989 film Dead Poets Society.

Swift explained her process in an Instagram post following the premiere of the video.

"When I was writing the Fortnight music video, I wanted to show you the worlds I saw in my head that served as the backdrop for making this music. Pretty much everything in it is a metaphor or a reference to one corner of the album or another," she wrote. "For me, this video turned out to be the perfect visual representation of this record and the stories I tell in it."

She continued, "@postmalone blew me away on set as our tortured tragic hero and I’m so grateful to him for everything he put into this collaboration. I’m still laughing from getting to work with the coolest guys on earth, @ethanhawke and @mrjoshcharles (tortured poets, meet your colleagues from down the hall, the dead poets). I still can’t believe I get to work with the unfathomably brilliant @rpstam on cinematography and my team of dream collaborators:
@ethantobman - production design
@chancler - editor
@dimino.anthony - 1st AD
@jilyjill - producer
@dom________________ - executive producer

@prlmt aced the VFX as always. @josephcassell1, @lorrieturk and @jemmamuradian made these tortured looks come to life. The entire crew made this a dream to shoot. Thank you to everyone involved and everyone who has watched it!!"

On Thursday, April 18, Swift, 34, announced that "Fortnight," featuring Post Malone, would be the first single off Tortured Poets, sharing a sneak peek teaser hours later.

In the announcement posted to her Instagram, the singer wrote of Malone, 28: “I’ve been such a huge fan of Post because of the writer he is, his musical experimentation and those melodies he creates that just stick in your head forever. I got to witness that magic come to life firsthand when we worked together on Fortnight.”

One of the immediate Easter eggs fans witnessed in the new music video was a callback to the hug shared between Swift and Malone at the 2019 American Music Awards after she took home the award for artist of the year (Malone was also up for the award that year).

In the video, the rapper and singer share a hug in the middle of an abandoned road underneath dark, storm-written clouds.

Swift is running into the rapper's arms wearing a black, high-necked, ruffled gown with puffed sleeves. On fan on X (formerly Twitter) compared the look to a “Victorian mourning dress."

The Metropolitan Museum of Art explains on its website that mourning dresses were "considered a social requisite to don black from anywhere between three months to two and a half years while grieving for a loved one or monarch" during Queen Victoria's reign from 1819 to 1901.

She wears the dress throughout many scenes in the video including while standing in the middle of a room with burning papers flying all around her and while ripping various drawers.

In another, Swift wears the symbolic gown while working at a typewriter while sitting across from Malone.

Streams of pink and blue are seeing flowing from each of their typewriters and cause a bright spark after connecting.

The colors contrast with the black-and-white setting of the video, which fans theorize might be a nod to Swift's lyrics from “Illicit Affairs,” in which she sings about her past lover showing her colors she’s not able to see with anyone else. 

Her ex-boyfriend, Matty Healy, also has been public about his affinity for typewriters, which is seemingly an Easter egg for the lover Swift is referencing in the song. 

One of the most prevalent scenes is that of Swift receiving shock therapy at an asylum, which goes in line with her lyrics about being “sent away."

At the event, Swift wore a Lorraine Schwartz vintage watch that was turned into a choker, a style once worn by Clara Bow, who also has a song bearing her name on the album.

Calling even more attention to Bow is Swift's makeup in the video including pencil-thin eyebrows and dark lipstick.