Joseph Kahn says Taylor Swift shot this 'Reputation' music video before scrapping it
"And all at once," the video for "King of My Heart" by Taylor Swift was gone.
The singer filmed a music video for the "Reputation" track a decade ago before shelving the project, according to her longtime collaborator Joseph Kahn.
"We started shooting it," Kahn said on a recent episode of the "Ourselves" podcast . "We never finished it because she switched gears in the middle of it to do 'Ready for It?'"
He told host and fellow music video director Arrad Rahgoshay the video was fully shot but never made it past production.
"It was highly visual effects," Kahn said.
When a Swift fan account shared the news , one of the comments read, "King of my heart video is officially becoming the new 'ATW 10 minute song.'" The joke being Swift mentioned on a livestream she had a 10-minute version of her song "All Too Well." Swifties begged her for years to release it, and she did on "Red (Taylor's Version)" in November 2021.
How did Swift meet Kahn?
Kahn has directed eight of Swift's music videos and one commercial. Their collaboration began during her "1989" era.
Kahn said on the podcast that he was watching "A Clockwork Orange" when his phone rang. Swift wanted him to direct the "Blank Space" music video. He later helmed visuals for "Out of the Woods," "Bad Blood" and "Wildest Dreams."
Their creative partnership continued into her "Reputation" era. Kahn met with Swift and producer Jack Antonoff right after the Super Bowl in 2017. The director said Swift was still reeling from online backlash and her infamous feud with Kim Kardashian , who labeled her a snake on social media.
"Let's embrace the snake," Kahn told her. "Snakes are cool. There's a lot worse things they could have called you. We decided to make the snake the concept in the video. I think she had so much fire in her, so much to prove. First song off the new album, she was ready to go all in on it."
That video — "Look What You Made Me Do" — was Kahn's most ambitious production to date, he said. It took five days across 18 sets to create.
"She wrote an unlimited check and went for it," Kahn said. "She paid for all of that stuff, and she didn't have any rights to it. I'm so glad that she has it all back now, because she's the one that was writing those checks. It was her personal cash, and she made the investment on every one of those videos and was the force that made it all happen. I was the lucky guy who executed them, but she laid it all on the line."
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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Taylor Swift shot this 'Reputation' music video before scrapping it
