‘The Fate Of Ophelia’ has become Taylor Swift’s longest-running Number One single in the UK after topping the Official Singles Chart for a seventh week.
The lead single from Swift’s latest album ‘The Life Of A Showgirl’, it was released on October 3, the same day as the album, and first got to Number One on October 16, knocking Olivia Dean’s ‘Man I Need’ off the top spot. It spent three weeks there before being replaced by ‘Golden’ from Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters, as performed by fictional K-pop group Huntr/x, which Swift then replaced again after two weeks.
‘The Fate Of Ophelia’ also registered the largest first-week sales of 2025 and of Swift’s career, with 132,000 units sold.
Previously, ‘Anti-Hero’, from Swift’s 2022 album ‘Midnights’, had been her longest-running Number One, spending six consecutive weeks at the top. At the time, she also became the first woman since Miley Cyrus in 2013 to top the albums and singles charts simultaneously, while the track also spent 15 non-consecutive weeks in the top 10.
Altogether, the singer has topped the UK chart with five different tracks. Her first was ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ in 2017, which spent two weeks at Number One, followed by ‘Anti-Hero’ in 2022 and then ‘Is It Over Now? (Taylor’s Version)’ in 2023 and ‘Fortnight’ the following year, both of which spent a week there, and then ‘The Fate Of Ophelia’.
‘The Life Of A Showgirl’, meanwhile, became Swift’s 14th Number One album in the UK, spending four non-consecutive weeks at the top spot. She has the most Number One albums for an international artist, and only The Beatles and Robbie Williams – both with 15 – have more overall. She’s in joint-second place with The Rolling Stones.
NME gave ‘The Life Of A Showgirl’ three stars, writing: “To seek escapism is not a sin, but the best pop music makes the personal feel like life or death. ‘Speak Now’, ‘Reputation’, ‘Folklore’: her greatest works could be genuinely transformative. For the first time, ‘The Life Of A Showgirl’ sees Swift not catalysed into artistic growth by love, but merely comfortably secured by it.”
The Official Charts has listed Swift as one of the artists likely in contention for the coveted Christmas Number One this year, with three of her songs – ’The Fate Of Ophelia’, ‘Opalite’ and ‘Olivia Taylor’ all currently charting.
Also expected to be in the running are Olivia Dean with ‘The Christmas Song’, Labrinth with ‘Where Love Lives’, which soundtracks this year’s John Lewis Christmas ad, McFly’s Tom Fletcher with ‘One Of Us’ from Paddington: The Musical, and Raye with ‘Where Is My Husband!’ which currently sits at Number Two and has spent 11 weeks in the chart so far.
Festive classics from Wham! and Mariah Carey could also be in contention, with ‘Last Christmas’ and ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ currently charting at Number Three and Four respectively. The former has been Christmas Number One for the past two years.
Meanwhile, Swift has recently shared the official trailer for her new concert film, The Eras Tour: The Final Show.
The movie captures the star’s last ‘Eras Tour’ stop at the BC Place stadium in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, last December. The Final Show features “the entire ‘Tortured Poets Department’ set” from her huge run of dates.
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