Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” music video is a sci-fi action epic (oh, and it features everyone ever)
Baby, now we got “Bad Blood” — the music video, that is. After much anticipation (and a whopping 18 character posters, starring a who’s who of young Hollywood), Taylor Swift debuted her latest music video Sunday night at the Billboard Music Awards. We knew from the promotional posters that the “Bad Blood” video was going to be big. It had major Sin City vibes and featured crazy cool character names like “Catastrophe” and “Arsyn.” Now that we’ve seen the video, well, let’s just say it’s above and beyond anything we could have imagined.
First of all, the cast is epic. Tay stars as Catastrophe, of course, and she’s doubled-crossed by fellow badass spy/assassin “Arsyn” at the beginning of the video (Arsyn is played by Taylor’s real-life BFF Selena Gomez). After that, we get to see an array of training for the epic revenge showdown and the other lady spies include the likes of Lena Dunham, Karlie Kloss, Jessica Alba, and Zendaya (and more — so, so many more). In addition to featuring everyone Taylor Swift has ever been friends with, the “Bad Blood” video also costars Kendrick Lamar, who contributes a cool new verse as his own alter ego, “Welvin Da Great.” It’s kind of amaze.
The video mixes elements of sci-fi epics, haunting revenge thrillers and highly-stylized (and highly-awesome) action movies for one over-the-top-in-the-best-way experience. Oh, and did we mention that everyone featured in the video got to name their own characters? That’s why the names are so wildly creative — and representative of each of their IRL personalities.
“I’m obsessed with Beyoncé,” Gigi Hadid, who plays Slay-Z in the video, told PEOPLE. “It’s a play on Jay Z and using the word ‘slay’ … because slay. Hashtag-slay!”
It feels like Taylor has been out to top herself with every single video for 1989. She reunited with Joseph Kahn, who directed her epically awesome “Blank Space” video for “Bad Blood” and the effort paid off. It’s definitely one of her most interesting and insanely memorable videos — like, ever.