Who Is Ophelia? All About the Namesake of Taylor Swift’s New Song

Taylor Swift is known for hiding plenty of Easter eggs throughout her career — but sometimes, she places references in plain sight.

In August 2025, the Grammy-winning pop star teamed up with New Heights, the podcast hosted by her fiancé, Travis Kelce, and his brother, Jason Kelce, to announce the title of her 12th studio album: The Life of a Showgirl. During her appearance on the podcast the next day, she shared that it was the record she’d been “wanting to make for a very long time.”

Swift unveiled the album’s mint green and sparkly orange cover art and went through its 12 tracks, beginning with its opening song, “The Fate of Ophelia.” Kelce then asked Jason if he knew Ophelia’s fate, and joked that he didn’t want to “rile” his brother up. Swift later revealed that she and Kelce had shared plenty of conversations about William Shakespeare‘s Hamlet.

“He pretends he doesn’t know what these words mean, but he knows what these words mean,” Swift said. “He knows all the words, and he knows what they mean. He may not have read Hamlet, but I explained it to him.”

So, who is Ophelia? Here’s everything to know about the Shakespearean character named in the opening track of Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl.

Who is Ophelia?

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Ophelia is Polonius’ daughter, Laertes’s sister, and the lover of Prince Hamlet.

Throughout the tragic play, the young noblewoman — who is initially portrayed as innocent, obedient and demure — is torn between her loyalty to her father and her love for Hamlet. Despite her affection for the prince, both her father and brother warn her to be cautious of him, fearing Hamlet’s intentions are not sincere.

When Polonius later orders her to distance herself from the prince, Ophelia becomes distraught, which is only intensified when Hamlet later kills her father.

What is Ophelia known for?

Ophelia is most known for her infamous mad scene in Act IV of Hamlet, which takes place after the titular character kills her father, Polonius. In the aftermath, Hamlet is especially cruel to Ophelia, who eventually descends into madness — singing fragmented songs and handing out symbolic flowers — before her tragic death.

Over the centuries, Ophelia has come to represent innocence driven to insanity. She was a young woman destroyed by the corruption and cruelty of the Danish court and by the lack of power women had in her time. As Swift put it concisely during an appearance on the U.K. radio show Heart Breakfast on the day of the album’s release, Ophelia was “driven mad by love.”

How does Ophelia die?

After suffering a mental breakdown, Ophelia tragically drowns at a young age, overcome by grief and madness. Though her death is not shown on stage, Queen Gertrude recounts it to Ophelia’s brother, Laertes, describing how Ophelia fell into a river while picking flowers and slowly sank beneath the water as she sang.

Many interpret Ophelia’s death as a symbol of how her life — and ultimately her fate — were controlled by the men around her.

How is Ophelia referenced in Taylor Swift’s new album, The Life of a Showgirl?

When Swift revealed the cover art and track list for The Life of a Showgirl, fans were quick to notice that she seemed to be directly referencing Hamlet‘s Ophelia. She decoded the track during her appearance on Heart Breakfast, saying, “The hook is someone comes into your life and rescues you from the fate of being driven mad by love.”

While that analysis itself leads viewers to assume she’s referring to her fiancé, there are also plenty of lyrical references to Kelce.

The lyrics (and the album!) open with Swift singing, “I heard you calling on the megaphone / You want to see me all alone.” She could be referring to the start of her and Kelce’s love story, when the football player admitted on his podcast that he tried (and failed!) to meet the singer at one of the stops on her Eras Tour.

She later sings, “Swore my loyalty to me, myself and I / Right before you lit my sky up,” which seems to reference her iconic Fourth of July Instagram photo from 2023, when she celebrated being “independent girlies” with Selena Gomez, the Haim sisters and more, nearly two years before she and Gomez both got engaged.

Elsewhere on the track, she sings to “Keep it 100,” a phrase the NFL star has used often, before singing, “Pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes.” During an Oct. 3 appearance on BBC 1, Swift confirmed that “Keep it 100” is a play on numerology, as Kelce and Swift’s favorite numbers, 87 and 13, respectively, add up to equal 100.

“No longer drowning and deceived / All because you came for me,” she continues in the bridge, before ending the song singing, “You saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia.”

In addition to the lyrics referencing Ophelia, she confirmed during her BBC 1 appearance that the album cover — a photo of her in a bathtub wearing a bedazzled dress — is a nod to the famous 19th-century John Everett Millais painting of Ophelia, partially submerged while floating down a river.