Taylor Swift’s “Lover” Music Video Finally Features a Black Love Interest

Taylor Swift's newest music video "Lover" is here, and it features her very own backup dancer, Christian Owens — who's also her first on-screen black love interest.

In the music video for the Lover album title track, Christian plays partner to Taylor in a visually lush, romantic dollhouse setup, full of bright colors and Wes Anderson-inspired scenery. The two fight and make up, and even end up with a daughter in the video's final scene. (The scene feels like a callback to a scene in the “Mine” music video when Taylor and her love interest are celebrating their child’s birthday with a party.)

The moment is a refreshing, long-needed change for Taylor's typical landscape of broody white boys (see: Tyler Hilton, Sean O'Pry, Dominic Sherwood, etc etc.). And the video contains all of Taylor's favorite symbols — her cats, her musical instruments, Christmas trees. Taylor released the video as part of a YouTube livestream called the Lover's Lounge, where she reminded fans that Christian was the “lead man” in Taylor’s dance routine for the “King Of My Heart” performances on the Reputation Stadium Tour.

She also revealed the music video was inspired by a lyric from 1989 track “You Are In Love” which has lyrics like, "And so it goes, you two are dancing in a snow globe round and round.” Taylor’s ballad “New Year’s Day” from Reputation is also referenced in this video, hence the New Year’s celebrations amongst Taylor, Christian, and their friends. In the stream, she shared that the album Lover was originally called Daylight, and that she consulted with her family to decide whether or not to release the likely heartfelt song “Soon You’ll Get Better.”

For the livestream, Taylor brought out a special guest — Stella McCartney, who collaborated with Taylor on a clothing collection inspired by the album. Taylor and Stella gave a preview of the New York City pop-up shop for their collaboration, which features displays of some of Taylor’s recent outfits, like one she wears in the “Lover” video and the rainbow fringe outfit from her Wango Tango performance. She ended the stream with her first-ever live performance of “The Archer.”

Taylor, of course, has dropped visual hints for the “Lover” music video by sharing various images on her Instagram story over the past few days, including a pink electric guitar, green drums, gifts under a Christmas tree, tulle dresses, "Happy New Year" hats and noisemakers, and a red acoustic guitar. Judging by Taylor’s hair and makeup in the video, it was likely filmed the same day that Taylor went on Instagram Live to announce the release of “The Archer” last month.

We're very happy for Taylor and Christian's picture-perfect ending — and it doesn't hurt that we have a whole album to look forward to when Lover officially drops at midnight on Aug. 23.

Let us slide into your DMs. Sign up for the Teen Vogue daily email.

Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: Taylor Swift Apparently Removed the "Spelling Is Fun" Lyric From Her Single "ME!"

Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue