Over the bad blood? Big Machine Records’ Scott Borchetta complimented Taylor Swift amid her feud with him and fellow label executive Scooter Braun.
“Of course. I mean, I’m always gonna root for her,” Borchetta, 57, told Billboard on Thursday, January 23. “She’s brilliant and we’ve had a historic run.”
As for the backlash he and Braun, 38, received as a result of Swift, 30, speaking out against them, the CEO did not seem worried. “We’ve always had a tough skin, so there’s a great balance in the universe. Great things have happened,” he said. “Every once in a while, you’re gonna get hit, but we’re rocking.”
Borchetta added of his partnership with the talent manager: “We’re having a great time and it’s pretty powerful.”
Swift made headlines in June 2019 when she called out Braun for purchasing her masters. She later claimed that Borchetta and the music executive denied her the right to perform her old hits at the 2019 American Music Awards and use her previous tracks in her Netflix documentary, Miss Americana. Big Machine denied the allegations.
Braun broke his silence on the ordeal in November 2019. “I just think we live in a time of toxic division, and of people thinking that social media is the appropriate place to air out on each other and not have conversations. I don’t like politicians doing it. I don’t like anybody doing it,” he said at the 2019 Entertainment Industry Conference. “If that means that I’ve got to be the bad guy longer, I’ll be the bad guy longer, but I’m not going to participate.”
He continued: “We’re inciting all of this by continuing these arguments in public. We just need to go behind closed doors and see if we can have a conversation. And if we’re not having conversations, then I don’t think we’re going to find resolution.”
Swift revealed in her Variety cover story earlier this week why she has been so vocal about her opposition toward Braun and Borchetta. “I do sleep well at night knowing that I’m right and knowing that in 10 years it will have been a good thing that I spoke about artists’ rights to their art, and that we bring up conversations like: Should record deals maybe be for a shorter term, or how are we really helping artists if we’re not giving them the first right of refusal to purchase their work if they want to?” she explained.
Meanwhile, Us Weekly broke the news on Friday, January 24, that the “Lover” singer will not attend the 2020 Grammy Awards on Sunday, January 26, despite earning three nominations.
