Scooter Braun knows where he stands. After Taylor Swift slammed him for purchasing Big Machine Record Group and her back catalog of master recordings, Braun is defending himself against the haters.
“I don’t do anything with malicious intent. I try to do things above board. I try to do the right thing. Not everyone’s gonna be happy with everything that you do, and I think in the long-term, I’ve learned this over time, the truth always comes out, and I’m confident in that,” the talent manager said during an interview with Tony Gonzalez on an episode of the “Wide Open” podcast.
In June, Swift called out Braun, 38, on Tumblr after news broke that he had purchased Big Machine in a deal worth more than $300 million, according to Billboard. Before she signed with Universal Music Group in 2018, Swift had worked with Big Machine since 2005. She recorded six albums with the company, which Braun now owns after his deal.
The Grammy winner, 29, went on to accuse Braun of “incessant manipulative bullying” at the hands of himself and his clients Justin Bieber and Kanye West, the latter of whom she has publicly feuded with on and off since 2009.
“Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy,” she wrote. “Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it. This is my worst case scenario. This is what happens when you sign a deal at fifteen to someone for whom the term ‘loyalty’ is clearly just a contractual concept. And when that man says ‘Music has value’, he means its value is beholden to men who had no part in creating it.”
Celebrities such as Halsey and Demi Lovato took sides, while Braun’s wife, Yael Cohen, slammed the artist on Instagram, claiming that Swift had “passed” on an opportunity to own her masters. In response, Swift’s attorney Donald Passman told Us, “[Big Machine founder] 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.” Braun later took to Twitter to congratulate Swift on her “brilliant” new album, Lover.
The pop star has since announced that she plans to re-record her old music, while Braun, who also manages Ariana Grande, is focusing on friends and family through the drama. “I went through some drama recently and then I put my phone down and looked at my friends and my family in my backyard and I was like, ‘I’m good. I’ve done nothing with malicious intent, I’m happy.’ … As long as the people that I love and respect are my compass, that’s the direction I’m going to go in,” he said on the podcast.
New episodes of “Wide Open With Tony Gonzalez” are available Mondays where podcasts are streamed.
