Taking the high road. Scooter Braun sent a congratulatory message to Taylor Swift on the release of her new album, Lover, after their drama over his purchase of her former record label.
“Regardless of what has been said the truth is you don’t make big bets unless you are a believer and always have been,” Braun, 38, tweeted on Friday, August 23. “Brilliant album with #Lover. Congrats @taylorswift13. Supporting was always the healthier option #brilliantalbum #brilliantcampaign congrats.”
Regardless of what has been said the truth is you don’t make big bets unless you are a believer and always have been. Brilliant album with #Lover. Congrats @taylorswift13. Supporting was always the healthier option 😊 #brilliantalbum #brilliantcampaign congrats
— Scooter Braun (@scooterbraun) August 23, 2019
Lover is the first album in Swift’s discography that she owns. Braun acquired the rights to her first six records in June after buying Big Machine Records for a reported $300 million. The Grammy winner, 29, is now signed to Republic Records.
Swift publicly slammed the deal in a lengthy Tumblr post in June, calling the situation her “worst case scenario” and accusing Braun of “incessant, manipulative bullying” at the hands of his clients Justin Bieber and Kanye West. The talent manager’s wife, F–k Cancer founder and CEO Yael Cohen, later claimed on Instagram that Swift had been offered “the opportunity to own” her master recordings but she “passed.”
After Big Machine founder Scott Borchetta claimed the same — writing on the label’s website that Swift “had every chance in the world to own not just her master recordings, but every video, photograph, everything associated to her career” — the “Shake It Off” singer’s lawyer, Donald Passman, told Us Weekly that she never had the “opportunity to purchase her masters, or the label, outright with a check.”
Now that the back-and-forth has simmered down, Swift plans to re-record her old music so that she can own it.
“My contract says that starting November 2020, so next year, I can record albums one through five all over again,” she said before her performance on Good Morning America on Thursday, August 22. “I think it’s important for artists to own their work. I’m gonna be busy. I’m very excited.”
