Well, well, well. After years of speculation, it looks like Taylor Swift’s Reputation rerecording is finally on its way. There was little pomp, and even less circumstance, to mark the occasion of Reputation (Taylor’s Version)’s first single—at least compared to past announcements—but we’ll take what we can get.
On May 19, eight years after Reputation, Swift’s sixth studio album, debuted, the first single from the rerecording was featured in an episode of Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale. “Look What You Made Me Do” (Taylor’s Version) immediately sent Swifties into a frenzy—and not just because the long wait for Rep TV appears to be over.
Some Swifties believe the 35-year-old masterminded the release as a direct response to President Donald Trump, who said last week, for some reason, that the superstar was “no longer hot.” Trump took credit for what he called the singer’s dip in popularity, after he said “I hate Taylor Swift” on social media back in 2024; the diss came after she endorsed his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, for president.
Read moreWhy Taylor Swift Getting Booed at the Super Bowl Was Even More Chilling Than You Think
From my seat at Super Bowl LIX, the crowd’s disparate reactions to Swift and Trump felt like a chilling microcosm of our current culture.
The collective freakout over “LWYMMD” TV discredits Trump’s theory of Swift’s declining hotness, but there’s more to it than that, according to some fans. The Handmaid’s Tale, starring Elisabeth Moss, is a show about a near-future dystopia where women are stripped of their rights and essentially reduced to nothing more than human incubators. The show is especially poignant as several states have effectively banned abortions. In fact, in the case of a woman in Georgia who is braindead but being kept alive to carry her fetus to term despite her family’s protests, real life is mirroring the show with eerie accuracy.
Since he was first elected to office in 2016, women have donned the white bonnets and red cloaks worn by the handmaids in the show as a form of protest; could Swift’s decision to lend her voice, specifically in a scene where the handmaids are staging an uprising, be her own metaphorical red cloak costume?
X content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
Swift hasn’t yet commented on the feature, or on the exact release date for Rep TV. However, Moss, who is also an executive producer on The Handmaid’s Tale, told Billboard that the song could not have been a more perfect fit for the scene in question.
“I’ve been wanting to use a Taylor song for many years on the show, and we finally found the perfect spot for a track from her, and I’m so glad we waited because there could not be a more perfect song for a more perfect moment,” Moss said. “Taylor has been such an inspiration to me personally. As a Swiftie myself, and I think I can speak for [co-star] Yvonne [Strahovski] and our entire cast as well, who are all Swifties, it’s such an honor to be able to use her music in the final episodes of our show.”
Choosing a rerecording, as opposed to one of her newer songs, feels on-brand for the show’s feminist themes too. For the uninitiated: Taylor Swift made the decision to rerecord her first six albums after Scooter Braun, a former talent manager best known for discovering Justin Bieber, purchased her original masters in 2019. Swift says she was not consulted about the sale, and that she would have liked to have had the opportunity to purchase them herself. She eventually chose to rerecord the songs, so she would own the masters.
When will we get Taylor Swift’s Reputation rerecording in full? We don’t have that info yet, but watch this space.
The post Taylor Swift Debuted Reputation TV on The Handmaid’s Tale—and Swifties Think It’s a Rebuke of Donald Trump appeared first on Glamour.
