Scooter Braun was ‘shocked’ over Taylor Swift feud after acquiring masters
By Hannah Roberts, PA Entertainment Reporter
Former talent manager Scooter Braun has said he thought buying Taylor Swift’s former label in 2019 would be an “exciting thing”, but was “shocked” by her reaction when he acquired the master recordings of her first six studio albums.
In May, the US pop star, 35, announced that she had bought back the rights to all of her music in a deal with private equity firm Shamrock Capital.
When Braun’s holding company, Ithaca Holdings, purchased Big Machine Label Group, Swift said in a Tumblr post that she was “sad” and “grossed out” – and accused the 43-year-old of being behind “incessant, manipulative bullying”.
Braun told The Diary Of A CEO podcast on Monday: “When I bought Big Machine, I thought I was going to work with all the artists on Big Machine, I thought it was going to be an exciting thing.
“She (Swift) and I had only met three times, I think. In my life, three or four times, and one of the times, it was years earlier.
“It was really a great engagement… we respected each other, we had a great engagement. In between that time, since I’d seen her last, I started managing Kanye West, I managed Justin Bieber. I knew she didn’t get along with them.
“I had a feeling – this is where my arrogance came in – I had a feeling she probably didn’t like me because I managed them. But I thought that once this announcement happened, she would talk to me, see who I am, and we would work together.
“And the announcement came out and I’m calling Scott Borchetta (chief executive of Big Machine Records) and saying, ‘Hey, send me her number… and I just talked to this person and they’re excited’… and then this Tumblr (post) comes out and says all this stuff. And I was just like, shocked.”
“It’s been five, six years, I don’t need to go back into it, but what I can tell you is everything in life is a gift.
“Having that experience allows me to have empathy for the people I worked with who I’d always say ‘Yeah I understand’ but I never knew what it was like to be on the global stage like that.
“I never knew what criticism like that felt like. And like I told you, the biggest gift that I got from that was understanding that all the praise I had received up until that moment was not deserved, and all the hate I got after that moment was not deserved, because none of these people knew me. She didn’t know me. This person didn’t know me.”
In 2019, Swift announced she would re-record several of her albums in a big to regain ownership of the masters.
A master recording is the original recording of a song and whoever owns it earns revenue through avenues including streaming and use in TV, film and adverts.
To date, Swift has released new versions of her previous albums Fearless (2008), Red (2012), Speak Now (2010) and 1989 (2014), with Reputation and her self-titled debut yet to be re-released as Taylor’s Versions.
Braun, who is now retired from talent managing, also discussed the musicians he worked with including Canadian pop star Bieber, who he helped to launch to fame as a teenager.
Asked why there are “so many” tragedies surrounding young musicians, he said: “At this age I feel a lot of guilt.
“I feel a lot of guilt because I worked with so many young artists, and like I told you, I hadn’t taken the time to look at myself or do the therapy myself until I was older.
“So I didn’t understand at 25 years old, at 27 years old, at 30 years old, that they each were coming from very unique backgrounds of their own stuff, with their own families and their own childhoods, and growing up this way and being seen by the whole world and being judged by the whole world at a very young age.”
He added that “human beings are not made to be worshipped” and said he now understands the importance of addressing mental health issues.