Florence Pugh stars in Yungblud’s moving ‘Zombie’ music video

Hollywood actress Florence Pugh stars in Yungblud’s music video for new track “Zombie”, which the artist says is about “feeling you’re ugly, and learning to battle that”.

Thunderbolts* lead Pugh, who previously called out “godawful headlines” body-shaming Keira Knightley, plays a healthcare worker in the video who is pushed to the emotional edge as they are overwhelmed by grief and exhaustion.

Yungblud – real name Dominic Harrison – debuted the song at a gig in London in March alongside two other new tracks,

“The song was written initially about my grandmother going through serious injury and trauma, leading her to become a different person to who she was before,” Yungblud explained in a statement quoted by NME.

“It’s about the feeling of deterioration and ugliness; shutting out the world and the people we love out of the fear of becoming a burden or an embarrassment.”

He added: “We all want someone or something to comfort us, no matter how we are right now or who we become in the future. But it’s fucking scary.”

The pansexual singer has previous spoken about his battle with eating disorders and body dysmorphia, admitting he has an unhealthy fixation on food and would “go on weird food binges, which I’ve never talked about before”.

“I always was insecure about my body, and that got highlighted as I got famous,” he told the Jamie Laing on the Great Company podcast.

“But I realised, the biggest power you can give someone over you is in how you react. So I decided, I’m going to get sober, I’m going to get fit, and I discovered boxing.”

He added: “Boxing’s become like therapy for me. If someone says something bad about me, I go to the gym, hit the punch bag for an hour and talk it out.”

Yungblud teased Pugh’s collaboration for the music video on Thursday (29 May) before sharing an emotional clip from the video, which shows Pugh’s character screaming and sobbing in anguish.

Ahead of his fourth studio album dropping, Yungblud called out allegations that he is ‘queerbaiting’ fans.

Queerbaiting is an LGBTQ+ term refers to people attempt to attract an LGBTQ+ audience by hinting at having an queer identity or same-sex relationships, without ever being explicit.

Discussing the matter on the We Need to Talk podcast with Paul C. Brunsen, the artist said: “I’ve fucked everyone under the sun and that’s the vibe.

“I love love. And if it’s a vibe, it’s a vibe.”

The music video for “Zombie” premieres at 4pm BST on Friday (May 30).