Taylor Swift Premieres ‘Patient Zero’ Music Video at VMAs, Turning Her New ‘Showgirl: Encore’ Single Into a Dramatic Ghost Story

Taylor Swift premiered her music video for "Patient Zero" at the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards. The video, which she directed, stars Dakota Johnson and Colin Farrell and features Swift herself. According to Variety, the video is a ghost story that follows the triangle in the song.

The video begins with Johnson holding a black rose in a snowy cemetery alongside Swift, as reported by Consequence. Johnson and Farrell act out a doomed romance, with Swift serving as an angel on Johnson's shoulder. In the second half of the video, Swift switches places with Johnson, who then appears to put the rose on her grave. Consequence also reported that the video was shot with cinematography by Oscar winner Emmanuel Lubezki.

The song "Patient Zero" was released as part of Swift's deluxe edition of The Life of a Showgirl, also referred to as "The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore" or "Showgirl: Encore" by some sources, which includes four new tracks. TheWrap provided lyrics from the song, which appears to be about a past lover and a new relationship. The song's inspiration came from experiences Swift and her friends have had with women dating their exes and reaching out to them for advice, as reported by TheWrap.

Brief written by urgent.news from Variety, Consequence, Forbes, TheWrap — 4 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.