Taylor Swift and Scooter Braun’s Feud: A Timeline

It was introduced on June 30, 2019, that Braun’s Ithaca Holdings agreed to accumulate Borchetta’s Big Machine Label Group in a blockbuster deal backed by the large international funding agency the Carlyle Group. The deal topped $300 million and additionally included Big Machine Music, the music publishing operation.

“The idea of Scott and I working together is nothing new, we’ve been talking about it since the beginning of our friendship,” Braun stated in an announcement. “I reached out to him when I saw an opportunity and, after many conversations, realized our visions were aligned. He’s built a brilliant company full of iconic songs and artists. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that? By joining together, we will create more opportunities for artists than ever before, by giving them the support and tools to go after whatever dreams they wish to pursue.”

The deal was financed by the Carlyle Group’s Carlyle Partners VI Fund, alongside Braun and Ithaca Holdings. The firm additionally introduced that Carlyle would stay a minority shareholder in Ithaca and proceed to help the mixed firm’s development technique with Carlyle Group international client, media and retail group head Jay Sammons remaining on Ithaca’s board. Borchetta would purchase a minority curiosity in Ithaca and be a part of its board whereas remaining president and CEO of BMLG.

The label beforehand misplaced Swift to Universal Music Group’s Republic Records in 2018, however nonetheless retained her catalog. Other artists on their roster on the time included Florida Georgia Line, Thomas Rhett, Reba McEntire, Rascal Flatts, Brantley Gilbert, Lady Antebellum, Cheap Trick and Jennifer Nettles.

In a letter posted to Tumblr shortly after the announcement, the megastar outlined why she was so upset with the brand new growth. She stated that she realized of the deal “as it was announced to the world,” however in line with a Billboard supply, her group had recognized in regards to the acquisition since June 25, 2019, when Big Machine held a shareholders assembly to debate the deal.

Her father, Scott Swift, additionally owns a small stake in Big Machine (about 4%). Braun is shopping for out his stake, in addition to these of different minority shareholders.

Swift went on to share that the deal made her revisit all the occasions she was allegedly bullied by Braun and his purchasers. “Like when Kim Kardashian orchestrated an illegally recorded snippet of a phone call to be leaked and then Scooter got his two clients together to bully me online about it,” she stated. “Or when his client, Kanye West, organized a revenge porn music video which strips my body naked. Now Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy. Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.”

She additionally went on to query Borchetta’s loyalty, saying that he knew how Swift felt about Braun.

The Big Machine label founder/CEO penned a letter titled, “So, It’s Time for Some Truth,” additionally posted June 30, 2019. He shared that he texted Swift the night time earlier than the deal went public: “I guess it might somehow be possible that her dad Scott, 13 Management lawyer Jay Schaudies (who represented Scott Swift on the shareholder calls) or 13 Management executive and Big Machine LLC shareholder Frank Bell (who was on the shareholder calls) didn’t say anything to Taylor over the prior 5 days. I guess it’s possible that she might not have seen my text. But, I truly doubt that she ‘woke up to the news when everyone else did.’”

Borchetta additionally disputed Swift’s declare that he’d proposed she “‘earn’ one album [master] back at a time, one for every new one [she] turned in.” “100% of all Taylor Swift assets were to be transferred to her immediately upon signing the new agreement,” he wrote, sharing a scan of a response to a proposal between Swift’s administration group and her lawyer Don Passman, named “TS Proposal” and dated Aug. 15, 2018. In the doc, BMLG agreed that “Upon execution [of a new contract], BMLG shall assign to TS all recordings (audio and/or visual), artwork, photographs and any other materials relating to TS which BMLG owns or controls.” Swift’s group was asking for a brand new seven-year contract, whereas BMLG needed a 10-year deal.

He additionally responded to Swift’s remark about preventing again tears each time Braun’s identify was introduced up: “Was I aware of some prior issues between Taylor and [Braun client] Justin Bieber? Yes….Scooter was never anything but positive about Taylor.”

Demi Lovato took to her Instagram Story on July 1, 2019, to defend Braun (“I’m always gonna stay loyal to my team”), as did his most well-known long-term consumer, Bieber, whom Swift had additionally referred to as out in her Tumblr publish for “bullying” her with Braun through a publish on the “Baby” singer’s Instagram.

Bieber’s publish on June 30, 2019, began off as an apology to Swift: “First of all i would like to apologize for posting that hurtful instagram post, at the time i thought it was funny but looking back it was distasteful and insensitive,” he wrote within the caption of a throwback picture.

He additionally took full accountability and confused that Braun “didn’t have anything to do with it and it wasn’t even a part of the conversation in all actuality he was the person who told me not to joke like that.” But because the publish went on, Bieber started to accuse Swift of the bullying. “As the years have passed we haven’t crossed paths and gotten to communicate our differences, hurts or frustrations. So for you to take it to social media and get people to hate on scooter isn’t fair. What were you trying to accomplish by posting that blog? seems to me like it was to get sympathy u also knew that in posting that your fans would go and bully scooter.”

Other celebrities spoke out in Swift’s favor. For one, Halsey posted a heartfelt word sharing her viewpoint: “Taylor Swift is a huge reason why I always insisted to write my own music. I believed if she did it (in a way that made my teeth ache like cold water and my heart swell and my eyes leak) than I should too. Cause that’s how to make someone feel. To drag it from the pits of your heart. To offer it on a platter and say ‘take some but take kindly.’ She deserves to own the painstaking labor of her heart.”

“It turns my guts that no matter how much power or success a woman has in this life, you are still susceptible to someone coming along and making you feel powerless out of spite,” she continued. “It speaks volumes to how far we have to come in the music industry.”

Hall additionally responded, accusing Braun of being “an evil person who’s only concern is his wealth and feeding his disgusting ego.” He went on to say, “I believe he is homophobic & I know from his own mouth that he is not a Swift fan.”

Kahn, a frequent director of Swift’s music movies, added: “I feel terrible for Taylor. This is the record business at it’s most ruthless and shady. She is genuinely one of the nicest people ever and does not deserve this. She should own her work.”

Yael Cohen, who was married to Braun on the time (the couple divorced in 2021), took to Instagram June 30, 2019, to defend her husband: “Your dad is a shareholder and was notified, and Borchetta personally told you this before it came out. So no, you didn’t find out with the world.”

She went on to handle Swift’s bullying remark, “Girl, who are you to talk about bullying? The world has watched you collect and drop friends like wilted flowers. My husband is anything but a bully, he’s spent his life standing up for people and causes he believes in.”

A spokesperson for Swift denied that her father Scott knew of the deal prematurely, telling People, “Scott Swift is not on the board of directors and has never been. On June 25, there was a shareholder phone call that Scott Swift did not participate in due to a very strict NDA that bound all shareholders and prohibited any discussion at all without risk of severe penalty.”

Swift’s lawyer, Don Passman, stepped into the battle with an announcement on July 2: “Scott Borchetta never gave Taylor Swift an opportunity to purchase her masters, or the label, outright with a check in the way he is now apparently doing for others.”

Passman virtually by no means feedback on artists’ offers, so it was an uncommon transfer for him to talk out on the case in any respect. He declined to remark past the assertion to Billboard.

Despite the back-and-forth relating to Swift’s masters, Braun took a second to congratulate the singer on the discharge of her seventh studio album, Lover. “Regardless of what has been said the truth is you don’t make big bets unless you are a believer and always have been,” he tweeted. “Brilliant album with #Lover. Congrats @taylorswift13.”

In an unique interview with CBS This Morning to advertise Lover, her first album with Republic Records, Swift introduced a plan to bypass Braun’s buy of her masters altogether by re-recording every of her first six albums. During the sit-down, she additionally shaded Borchetta’s option to promote her masters to Braun, saying, “I knew he would sell my music, I knew he would do that. I couldn’t believe who he sold it to. Because we’ve had endless conversations about Scooter Braun, and he has 300 million reasons to conveniently forget those conversations.”

After months of simmering rigidity, Swift’s dispute with Braun and Borchetta reached a brand new stage on forward of the 2019 American Music Awards. In a viral publish throughout her social media platforms, the celebrity accused Braun and her former label boss of refusing to permit her to make use of any songs from her again catalog in her efficiency on the award present, the place she was set to be honored as artist of the last decade. Additionally, Swift claimed the 2 males had been denying use of her older hits in a beforehand unannounced Netflix documentary about her life, and claimed “any other recorded events I am planning to play until November of 2020 are a question mark.”

In an unsigned press launch posted to their web site shortly after Swift’s assertion, the singer’s former label refuted her claims. Big Machine denied retaining her from performing on the AMAs or blocking the Netlfix particular — with out immediately addressing the usage of her previous hits in both — and fired again an allegation that Swift “has admitted to contractually owing millions of dollars and multiple assets to our company.”

Halsey, Selena Gomez, Gigi Hadid and extra buddies and friends of Swift as soon as once more took to social media to face by her. “My heart is so heavy write now,” Gomez posted on Instagram. “It makes me sick and extremely angry. (I [don’t] mind if there may be retaliation) this is my opinion. It’s greed, manipulation and power.”

“This is just mean. This is punishment. This is hoping to silence her from speaking about things by dangling this over her head,” Halsey wrote on her Story, whereas Hadid said, “Scott and Scooter, you know what the right thing to do is — Taylor and her fans deserve to celebrate the music!!”

Swift’s publicist, Tree Paine, promptly issued an announcement doubling down on Swift’s declare that Borchetta “flatly denied the request for both American Music Awards and Netflix” earlier than including, “Please notice in Big Machine’s statement, they never actually deny either claim Taylor said last night in her post.”

Paine’s assertion additionally accused Swift’s former label of “trying to deflect and make this about money” and retaliated by sustaining that “a professional auditor has determined that Big Machine owes Taylor $7.9 million dollars of unpaid royalties over several years.”

Though Swift was not talked about by identify, a consultant for Big Machine stated in an announcement to Billboard that the corporate has “agreed to grant all licenses of their artists’ performances to stream post show and for re-broadcast on mutually approved platforms.”

“It should be noted that recording artists do not need label approval for live performances on television or any other live media,” the assertion continues. “Record label approval is only needed for contracted artists’ audio and visual recordings and in determining how those works are distributed.”

Swift went on to carry out quite a few her outdated songs on the AMAs, together with “Love Story,” “I Knew You Were Trouble” and “Shake It Off.” She seemingly alluded to her possession battle by carrying a males’s button-down printed with the names of her first six album titles firstly of her efficiency, singing a snippet of “The Man.”

In an open letter to Swift posted on Instagram, Braun revealed that he and his household had acquired “numerous death threats” because the pop star’s assertion in regards to the AMAs. “I assume this was not your intention but it is important that you understand that your words carry a tremendous amount of weight and that your message can be interpreted by some in different ways,” he continued within the publish. “While disappointed that you have remained silent after being notified by your attorney 4 days ago of these ongoing threats, I’m still hopeful we can fix this.”

During her Woman of the Decade interview with Billboard, Swift stated, “Every week, we get a dozen synch requests to use ‘Shake It Off’ in some advertisement or ‘Blank Space’ in some movie trailer, and we say no to every single one of them. And the reason I’m rerecording my music next year is because I do want my music to live on. I do want it to be in movies, I do want it to be in commercials. But I only want that if I own it.”

“It’s going to be fun, because it’ll feel like regaining a freedom and taking back what’s mine,” she stated of the re-recording course of. “When I created [these songs], I didn’t know what they would grow up to be. Going back in and knowing that it meant something to people is actually a really beautiful way to celebrate what the fans have done for my music.”

While accepting the Woman of the Decade honors at Billboard‘s Women in Music occasion, Swift touched on her feud with Braun. “Lately there’s been a new shift that has affected me personally and that I feel is a potentially harmful force in our industry, and as your resident loud person, I feel the need to bring it up,” she stated on the ceremony. “And that’s the unregulated world of personal fairness coming in and shopping for up our music as whether it is actual property. As if it’s an app or a shoe line. This simply occurred to me with out my approval, session, or consent.

After I used to be denied the prospect to buy my music outright, my total catalog was bought to Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings in a deal that I’m informed was funded by the Soros Family, 23 Capital, and the Carlyle Group. Yet to today none of those buyers have ever bothered to contact me or my group immediately. To carry out their due diligence on their funding. On their funding in me. To ask how I would really feel in regards to the new proprietor of my artwork. The music I wrote. The movies I created. Photos of me, my handwriting, my album designs. And in fact, Scooter by no means contacted me or my group to debate it previous to the sale and even when it was introduced.

I’m pretty sure he knew precisely how I’d really feel about it although. And let me simply say that the definition of the poisonous male privilege in our trade is individuals saying, ‘But he’s at all times been good to me,’ after I’m elevating legitimate considerations about artists and their rights to personal their music. And in fact he’s good to you. If you’re on this room, you’ve gotten one thing he wants.

The truth is that personal fairness is what enabled this man to suppose, in line with his personal social media publish, that he might purchase me. But I’m clearly not going willingly. Yet essentially the most wonderful factor was to find that it could be the ladies in our trade who would have my again and present me essentially the most vocal help at one of the vital troublesome occasions, and I’ll by no means, ever neglect it. Like, ever.”

Using a number of barometers employed by music trade buyers, Billboard estimated in February 2020 that the worth of Swift’s first six albums was anyplace from $400 million to $450 million, roughly double what Braun paid for them three months prior.

In April 2020, Swift knowledgeable her followers through Instagram tales that her “former label is putting out an ‘album’ of live performances of mine tonight.”

“I’m always honest with you guys about this stuff so I just wanted to tell you that this release is not approved by me,” Swift continued of the mission, Live From Clear Channel Stripped 2008. “It seems to me like Scooter Braun and his monetary backers, 23 Capital, Alex Soros and the Soros household and The Carlyle Group have seen the newest steadiness sheets and realized that paying $330 MILLION for my music wasn’t precisely a clever alternative and they want cash.

“In my opinion…Just another case of shameless greed in the time of Coronavirus,” the star concluded. “So tasteless, but very transparent.”

Ye, on the time nonetheless often called Kanye West, went on a tweeting spree in September 2020 proclaiming that “all artists must be free” and referring to the music trade as “modern day slavery.”

He then introduced Swift’s dispute with Braun into the dialogue. “I’M GOING TO PERSONALLY SEE TO IT THAT TAYLOR SWIFT GETS HER MASTERS BACK. SCOOTER IS A CLOSE FAMILY FRIEND,” the rapper tweeted.

In August 2019, Swift informed Good Morning America‘s Robin Roberts when exactly she’d have the ability to begin legally rerecording her outdated music. “Yeah, that’s true and it’s something that I’m very excited about doing, because my contract says that starting November 2020 — so next year — I can record albums one through five all over again,” she stated on the time. “I’m very excited about it. I just think that artists deserve to own their own work. I just feel very passionately about that.”

Sure sufficient, on the primary day of November 2020, Swifties took to social media to have fun with the hashtag #TaylorIsFree.

According to a word Swift posted to Twitter on Nov. 16, 2020, and confirmed to Billboard by a supply, Shamrock Holdings bought the star’s Big Machine Label Group catalog from Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings. The sale marked the second time in 17 months possession over Swift’s first six albums had modified palms.

Swift posted to X that after Braun determined to promote her masters, his “team” had requested her to signal a non-disclosure settlement earlier than she might even “bid on [her] own work.” “My legal team said that this is absolutely not normal, and they’re never seen an NDA like this presented unless it was to silence an assault accuser by paying them off,” she added on the time. “He would never even quote my team a price. These master recordings were not for sale to me.”

She additionally wrote that she’d initially been open to a partnership with Shamrock after the sale went by way of, however finally determined in opposition to it after studying that Braun would “continue to profit off my old musical catalog for many years” underneath the brand new phrases. “Scooter’s participation is a non-starter for me,” she added in her publish.

On April 9, 2021 — practically two years after Swift first referred to as out Braun for the sale of her masters — the pop star dropped Fearless (Taylor’s Version), the primary of her six deliberate re-records. Complete with never-before-heard Vault tracks and collaborations with different artists, the mission was an enormous success and ended up topping the Billboard 200 for 2 weeks.

“This process has been more fulfilling and emotional than I could’ve imagined and has made me even more determined to re-record all of my music,” she wrote in a word to followers previous to the album’s launch. “I hope you’ll like this first outing as much as I liked traveling back in time to recreate it.”

In June 2021, Braun mirrored on the quick aftermath of his acquisition of Swift’s catalog in an interview with Variety. “I regret and it makes me sad that Taylor had that reaction to the deal,” he informed the publication. “All of what happened has been very confusing and not based on anything factual.”

“I don’t know what story she was told,” he continued. “I asked for her to sit down with me several times, but she refused. I offered to sell her the catalog back and went under NDA, but her team refused. It all seems very unfortunate. Open communication is important and can lead to understanding. She and I only met briefly three or four times in the past, and all our interactions were really friendly and kind. I find her to be an incredibly talented artist and wish her nothing but the best.”

Swift quickly adopted up Fearless with Red (Taylor’s Version) in November 2021. In addition to topping the Billboard 200, the mission earned Swift her eighth No. 1 hit on the Hot 100 with “All Too Well (10 Minute Version),” which additionally set a document by dethroning Don McLean’s “American Pie” for longest tune to high the chart.

Braun once more mirrored on his dispute with Swift in a 2022 interview with MSNBC. “When I was buying [Big Machine], I actually said to that group, ‘If at any point [Swift] wants to come back and be a part of this conversation, please let me know, because I wouldn’t do this deal,’” he stated. “I was shown an email — which has now been made public now — where she stated that she wanted to move on that negotiation and wasn’t interested in doing that deal anymore.”

The mogul later continued, “I think Taylor has every right to re-record. She has every right to pursue her masters, and I wish her nothing but well, and I have zero interest in saying anything bad about her. I’ve never said anything bad about her in the past, and I won’t start to now. The only thing I disagree with is weaponizing a fanbase.”

While talking to NPR in September 2022, Braun opened up in regards to the “important lesson” his expertise with Big Machine and Swift taught him: “I can’t put myself in a place of, you know, arrogance to think that someone would just be willing to have a conversation and be excited to work with me,” he stated.

The entrepreneur went on to emphasise how essential it has been for him because the debacle with Swift to ensure he has conversations with everybody concerned forward of main enterprise strikes — one thing he says he didn’t have the prospect to do when buying Big Machine, as he was underneath a strict NDA that forbade him from contacting any of the artists on the label’s roster earlier than the sale.

“The regret I have there is that I made the assumption that everyone, once the deal was done, was going to have a conversation with me, see my intent, see my character and say, great, let’s be in business together,” Braun added to NPR. “And I made that assumption with people that I didn’t know.”

The third album in Swift’s discography grew to become her third re-release on July 7, 2023, with the pop star unveiling Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) a pair months after asserting it at an Eras Tour present. The LP spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

When Swift dropped 1989 (Taylor’s Version) in October 2023, it rapidly grew to become her most profitable re-record thus far. Spending six weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, the LP was the star’s first to outperform its unique counterpart in first-week gross sales, taking residence 1,359 million compared to 1989‘s 1.287 million in 2014.

While talking to TIME for her 2023 Person of the Year interview, Swift stated that her dispute with Braun was certainly one of two springboards for the place her profession is now (the opposite being her feud with Ye and Kim Kardashian).

“With the Scooter thing, my masters were being sold to someone who actively wanted them for nefarious reasons, in my opinion,” she informed the publication on the time. “I was so knocked on my a– by the sale of my music, and to whom it was sold. I was like, ‘Oh, they got me beat now. This is it. I don’t know what to do.’”

Swift additionally described the state of affairs with Braun has “having my life’s work taken away from me by someone who hates me.” “My response to anything that happens, good or bad, is to keep making things,” she added. “Keep making art … But I’ve also learned there’s no point in actively trying to quote unquote defeat your enemies. Trash takes itself out every single time.”

Five years after their feud first exploded into the general public eye, Braun turned some heads by posting about Swift on his Instagram Story. Sharing a TMZ article in regards to the pop star’s seashore trip with boyfriend Travis Kelce, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, the businessman wrote, “How was I not invited to this?!? #laughalittle.”

Just earlier than that, he additionally posted about watching Max’s documentary about their feud — Taylor Swift vs Scooter Braun: Bad Blood — which had premiered two months prior. “I finally watched it…,” he merely wrote, sharing a screenshot of the mission’s poster.

“You’d think after his previous posts about her he’d learn by now,” an trade supply informed Billboard of Braun’s exercise on the time. “It’s like he’s obsessed.”

After Swift endorsed Kamala Harris for the 2024 presidential election, Republican opponent Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social, “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT.”

In response, Braun reshared the twice-impeached ex-POTUS’ publish on Instagram Stories and wrote, “Shake it off Donald … Kamala 2024.”