Taylor Swift to Premiere 'Patient Zero' Video at VMAs — SkimNews
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- Taylor Swift will premiere the full "Patient Zero" video at the MTV VMAs on Sunday at 7:30 p.m. ET on CBS and MTV (also streaming on Paramount+), after a 13-second teaser dropped Thursday showing bathroom, pool, and cemetery scenes with Dakota Johnson and Colin Farrell.
- Dakota Johnson and Colin Farrell co-star in the video, which was shot by three-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezski (The Revenant, Birdman, Gravity) and opens with Swift turning on a faucet as orchestral strings play.
- "Patient Zero" the single releases Friday ahead of the video, bundled into The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore, an expanded edition adding four new tracks — "Cleveland!," "Pink Clouding," and "Babylon" alongside the lead single.
- Swift arrives at the VMAs nominated in 11 categories and will receive the inaugural Artist Director Honors, a new award recognizing work behind the camera that "expanded the possibilities of music video and advanced the art of visual storytelling."
- Swift wrote that after The Life of a Showgirl notched the "biggest first week for an album in history," she traveled to Sweden with producers Max Martin and Shellback, where the four Encore tracks were written out of "pure gratitude."
Why it matters: Swift receiving the first-ever Artist Director Honors alongside 11 nominations marks a formal institutional shift: the VMAs are now explicitly rewarding artists who direct their own visuals, and Swift's choice of Lubezski and A-list co-stars for "Patient Zero" demonstrates the scale she's operating at — cinematic, not promotional. Releasing the Encore the same week as the original album's record first week turns that momentum directly into catalog.
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