Scooter Braun is sharing some new insight into his controversial feud with Taylor Swift and how he still doesn’t understand why it happened.
Taylor very publicly spoke out against Scooter after he spent $300 million to buy her former record label Big Machine Records, which made him the owner of the master recordings for her first six albums. At the time, Taylor claimed that she was not given a fair opportunity to buy the masters upon her decision to leave the label.
After re-recording four of the six albums and selling millions of copies of the re-recorded music, Taylor used the money she earned to buy back the masters from the company who bought it from Scooter.
In a new interview on the Second Thought podcast with host Suzy Weiss, Scooter discussed the controversy and how he felt about everything that happened.
On the biggest misconception about the Taylor Swift controversy
“[I] went from being like, loved and appreciated for over a decade to literally a villain the next night. I don’t want to go into that, but I will say something that will really sum it up that I don’t know if I’ve ever really said: I don’t know Taylor Swift. I think I’ve met her in my life three times. I have never had a substantial conversation with her in my life. I one time got invited to a private party by her. She told me she had the utmost respect for me. I told her I had the most respect for her. You don’t spend $300 million buying a label that she’s on unless you’re excited at the opportunity to work with her. I will never truly understand that situation. To this day, I wish her nothing but the best.”
“I learned a tremendous amount from it. I chose to grow from it. I’m grateful for it at this point in my life. But I think there’s this big misconception that, like, we knew each other and we had this feud and I managed her for years. And people are usually shocked to find out that I legitimately don’t know her and didn’t have many interactions with her and never really knew her.”
On his only interactions with Taylor Swift
“I think I spoke to her, really, once for like more than two minutes. But it was a very nice conversation. And beyond that, nothing ever. And then the three years prior to us buying Big Machine, she and I had no contact. I think it was two years. The party was like two years earlier or three years earlier, and then never had any contact through the whole thing. So I’m just as confused that this is part of my life as you are. But, but, but I choose to learn and grow from it.”
On what he learned from the controversy
“Labels make bets on artists, and they own the masters and the artists own their publishing. Artists end up selling their publishing whether they need the money or decide they want to sell, and the labels are very, very well-funded so they don’t have to transact the masters. The majority, to this day, of masters are still owned by labels. As confusing as [the situation was] to me, I think what it did bring to light is that artists are going to start wanting to own their masters, and I think you’re seeing artists more and more do that, and I think that’s great.”
Quotes transcribed by Variety.
Scooter also opened up about his girlfriend, Sydney Sweeney, in the interview.
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