NEWS
Taylor Swift and Miles Teller in the "I Bet You Think About Me" music video.
Video screenshotOn Monday, Miles Teller set the record straight about whether he’s vaccinated after starring in a music video for Taylor Swift’s new Red (Taylor’s Version) “From the Vault” track “I Bet You Think About Me,” featuring Chris Stapleton.
The Swifties were definitely thinking about the Whiplash actor after tabloids reported in September that Teller was unvaccinated and had shut down production on The Godfather Paramount+ spinoff series The Other after testing positive for COVID-19. His publicist Lauren Hozempa denied the anti-vaxx rumor, but Swift’s fans still bashed his casting in the Blake Lively-directed video on social media.
“Yeah, Taylor Swift, I love you, but having noted Covid-denier Miles Teller in your video….” one Twitter user commented, while another added, “Lemme get this straight… Out of every employable actor in the business, Taylor Swift and Blake Lively decided that during the pandemic they’d hire literal anti vaxxer Miles Teller to star in their new video? Miss girls this ain’t it….”
Teller addressed the situation directly by tweeting late Monday night: “Hey guys, I don’t usually feel the need to address rumors on here but I am vaccinated and have been for a while. The only thing I’m anti is hate.”
Hey guys, I don’t usually feel the need to address rumors on here but I am vaccinated and have been for a while. The only thing I’m anti is hate.
— Miles Teller (@Miles_Teller) November 16, 2021
Teller appears in the new music video, which has racked up more than 10 million views in one day, alongside his real-life wife Keleigh Sperry. The War Dogs actor plays a groom haunted by vivid memories of his scarlet-wearing ex (Swift) during his wedding to someone else (Sperry) in the six-minute visual.
Swift is also a fan of the couple in real life, sending them a bouquet of flowers and a card quoting her “Lover” lyrics after Teller and Sperry tied the knot in September 2019. Sperry and the superstar have been friends for years, dating back to the time in 2015 when she attended Swift’s 1989 World Tour and posted a super close-up photo with the caption, “A night I will never forget, sitting in this super humans dressing room and picking out her finale outfit while she calmly sips coffee and thousands of people are screaming in excitement above her.”
See some of the reaction to Teller’s casting below:
NEWS
No matter what you thought of the Kendrick Lamar and Drake battle, there was only one undisputed winner by the end of it all: the reaction community in the worlds of streaming and YouTube. Your favorite content creators broke down the bars, reacted to all the most shocking moments, and helped this showdown become one of hip-hop's most culturally significant and resonant moments in a long time... For better or worse. See, the battle's technically not over yet, but only because the 6ix God's idea of victory is clearly quite different. In his federal defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group – his label – for releasing K.Dot's "Not Like Us," he named various content creators who allegedly helped boost the track's widespread popularity and, as a result, its supposedly defamatory nature.
Furthermore, the specific allegation that Drake brings up in this highly controversial lawsuit is that UMG "whitelisted" copyright claims for YouTubers, streamers, etc. concerning "Not Like Us." This means that they would be able to monetize their content without facing a copyright claim from UMG over "Not Like Us," and this isn't really an allegation because various creators have backed this up. But a few important (alleged) caveats that people are talking about online need to be clear. First, "whitelisting" supposedly happens on behalf of a record label behind a song like the West Coast banger, and UMG is instead the distributor of that track. Secondly, as rapper and online personality ScruFaceJean brings up as seen in the post below, tracks like "Push Ups" were also "whitelisted" by its team.
Along with Jean, many other of your favorite content creators spoke out against this Drake lawsuit. Zias! and B.Lou, for example, spoke with their lawyer about the possibility of countersuing for emotional distress, as they found the Toronto superstar's accusations and his implication of them very disturbing and misguided. NoLifeShaq also dragged The Boy through the mud, calling him "soft" and positing that, whether "whitelisting" happened or not, they would react to "Not Like Us" accordingly as they did to his own tracks.
In addition, it's important to bring up that many others fans have pointed to how Drake excitedly used streamers to generate hype and reaction clips for his own diss tracks against Kendrick Lamar. The most direct example is with Kai Cenat, whom he texted to "stay on stream" before dropping "Family Matters." Ironically, the Twitch giant appears in this clowned-upon defamation lawsuit as an example of what the OVO mogul's accusations and implications are. And one more thing: there is no direct link between monetization and algorithmic boosting on sites like YouTube. With all this in mind, content creators seem to feel almost insulted at the idea that they only reacted to the two biggest rappers in the world beefing with each other because one of them would allow them to make money. If Drizzy knew the first thing about the reaction community, maybe he wouldn't have included this...
