Lupita Nyong’o shares how Taylor Swift’s music ‘lifted her up’ despite her ‘self-doubt’

June 28, 2024

Lupita Nyong’o showed her affection for Taylor Swift as she recalled how the pop superstar’s music helped her during a difficult time in her life.

The Oscar winner told Sean Evans, host of First We Feast’s popular YouTube series “Hot Ones,” that she contacted Swift after producers were unable to clear the rights to “Shake It Off” for her 2019 film “Little Monsters.” (First We Feast and HuffPost share a parent company, Buzzfeed Inc.)

“When I was working on ‘Star Wars’ in London, I had a lot of self-doubt because it was the second one I had done,” explained Nyong’o, who stars in “A Quiet Place: Day One.”

She continued: “I was a bit depressed. My best friend came to London and Taylor had just released ‘Shake It Off’. He played it for me to cheer me up. We just jumped on my bed and danced and danced and it lifted my spirits.”

Nyong’o had previously revealed how the song helped her through a “difficult professional time” and described the track as one of her “anthems” in a 2019 interview with USA Today.

“That’s one of the reasons I was interested in this film when I read the script, because I thought, ‘Someone who loves Shake It Off as much as I do!'” she said of Abe Forsythe’s “Little Monsters,” a film in which she plays Miss Audrey Caroline and plays the Swift number on the ukulele.

The Oscar winner told Evans that she decided to reach out to Swift after producers told her they could not clear the rights to the song.

“I’m going to make her my offer. I’m going to tell Taylor what this song means to me, and I told her the story of how it got me out of a near depression,” recalls Nyong’o, who made friendship bracelets before attending a stop on Swift’s Eras tour last year.

“And before I knew it, everything was cleared up.”

She further noted that she hadn’t seen Swift in years and later thanked the singer for her seal of approval.