We don’t often get glimpses inside Taylor Swift’s multimillion-dollar real estate portfolio, but for the most recent one, we can thank Zoë Kravitz and her mother’s pet snake.
Kravitz appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers this week to promote her upcoming film, Caught Stealing, but an anecdote involving reptilian property damage stole the show. Earlier this year, when Kravitz and her mother, Lisa Bonet, were forced to evacuate their homes due to the Southern California wildfires, her pal Taylor Swift offered up her historic 1934 Beverly Hills mansion as a haven. (The Batman actor and the pop megastar have been linked together since 2016, but grew especially close while quarantining in the same “pod” in London in the early days of the 2020 pandemic, as Kravitz told GQ.) Kravitz explained that she typically considers herself an exemplary house guest, but that standard went out the window when Orpheus the snake got into the walls.
Toward the end of Kravitz’s two-week stay, she got a phone call from Bonet—which was odd, since she was just upstairs in one of the home’s seven bathrooms. It turned out that Orpheus, Bonet’s pet snake, had wiggled into a small hole between the bathroom wall and the built-in banquette. To prevent the snake from becoming permanently lost in the structure of Swift’s home, Bonet was gripping it by its minimally exposed tail. In the struggle that ensued, a panicked Kravitz called both her assistant and Swift’s house manager, who eventually had to take a crowbar to the banquette.
“We’re ripping up the tile, we’re scratching the walls,” she recalls. “So, we destroyed the bathroom.”
Despite Kravitz’s request that house manager not inform Swift of the damage until she could pay for everything to be fixed, the singer already knew about the snake incident when Kravitz called to fess up, and responded in good humor. Although Kravitz didn’t clarify whether the renovation would be purely restorative or incorporate a redesign, Meyers produced an action shot that lends more context. In the photo, Kravitz, Bonet, and the property manager are sprawled across a wine-colored oriental rug and the white marble tiled floor. The banquette in question is painted a cream shade, while the wall behind it is midnight blue.
It’s also worth noting that the home, previously owned by producer Samuel Goldwyn, was designated a historic landmark in 2017.
Earlier this year, if you had told a group of Swifties that a snake in Taylor Swift’s decor would be making headlines, they would have taken it as a sign that Reputation (Taylor’s Version) was on the way. Luckily, before Kravitz’s escapade could be analyzed as an Easter egg, Swift announced that she halted production on the Reputation re-record after purchasing the masters to all of her music in May. Instead, fans have a brand new album to look forward to: Yesterday, Swift confirmed that The Life of a Show Girl is set for release on October 3.
Grace McCarty is a freelance Associate Digital Editor at ELLE Decor, where she covers design trends, shopping, and culture. She previously held a staff position at SELF Magazine, where she focused on beauty, style, and wellness. Her work has also appeared in Glamour and Parade.