27 February 2020
Newsdesk
Taylor Swift has donned drag to transform herself into an obnoxious, hard-partying man for her new music video.
The Bad Blood hitmaker has directed the promo for her track The Man, and in a clip that debuted on Thursday, is seen sporting intense make-up and prosthetics to play a sexist playboy character.
In the video, Taylor as 'The Man' berates co-workers in an office, manspreads on the subway while smoking a cigar, urinates on a station wall, parties with bikini-clad models on a yacht, and throws a tantrum at a women's charity tennis tournament.
At the end of the video, Taylor, as director, is shown talking to 'The Actor' playing The Man, voiced by Dwayne Johnson, and tells him he needs to be "sexier" and "more likeable". The credits then reveal the make-up transformation the 30-year-old underwent to play the role.
It also contains a dig at music manager Scooter Braun, who she has feuded with over his decision to buy up her back catalogue, and a jokey namecheck for Leonardo DiCaprio - with many of the videos scenes bearing a resemblance to his movie The Wolf of Wall Street.
Before releasing the video, Taylor hosted a YouTube Q&A session with fans in the comments section of her YouTube Premiere account, revealing what it was like to direct the video - and hinted at some of its secrets.
"I loved the months of prep, meetings, location scouting, set design, mood boards, deciding every detail down to the wardrobe each actress/actor wore and working with them on set," she wrote. "So, um all of it."
She also described the person playing 'The Man' as, "A bo$$", and hinted that there would be cameos in the video "but not in the way you think".
One person who does make a full cameo is Taylor's dad Scott, who appears briefly as a tennis umpire.
