Scooter Braun on Taylor Swift buying masters: 'Everybody in the end won'

USA Today

5 days ago

Music executive Scooter Braun broke his silence on Taylor Swift buying her master recordings, saying: "The cool part, if you actually pay attention, is everybody in the end won."
The comment comes just past the halfway mark of his appearance on the "Question Everything" podcast hosted by Danielle Robay. Around the 46 minute mark, Robay brings up Braun's company Ithaca Holdings and its 2019 acquisition of the rights to Swift's first six albums from Big Machine Label Group along with the work of other artists including Thomas Rhett and Florida Georgia Line.
"If people didn't know you from your work with all these artists like [Justin] Bieber and Ariana [Grande], they definitely know you from the Swift saga," Robay said.
"What happened?" Braun replied.
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In 2019, Taylor Swift told fans in a Tumblr post that she "wasn't given an opportunity to buy" the original recordings of her first six albums. She also said two of Braun's clients — Bieber and Kanye West — had bullied her online and described the sale of her catalog to Braun as her "worst case scenario."
On the podcast, Braun responded to Swift's original statement, "Like when Taylor says she wasn't offered the masters, the reason I was under NDA is because we were in negotiations to sell it back to her. I choose to believe her that maybe they didn't tell her."
Robay asked, "Who's they?" to which Braun answered, "Her team. Maybe her team didn't tell her, didn't understand the negotiations."
In 2020, Braun sold the masters to Shamrock Capital, which sold them back to the superstar in May. Swift shared a letter on her website saying, "I will be forever grateful to everyone at Shamrock Capital for being the first people to ever offer this to me... I am endlessly thankful. My first tattoo might just be a huge shamrock in the middle of my forehead."
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Braun explained why, from a business standpoint, he believes everyone came out ahead — despite the controversy. Swift's decision to rerecord her first six albums led to surges in streaming for both the original versions and the newly released "Taylor's Versions."
"She's the biggest she's ever been, the biggest artist of all time," he said referencing the global success of her Eras Tour.
Braun told Robay he wished one thing had gone differently.
"The only thing that I really regret is it's easy to have a monster, if you never meet them," he said. "Taylor and I have only met three times in our life, and I think at that point we hadn't seen each other in two, three years. I was managing people she wasn't a fan of, and she probably saw my name come up and thought, 'I don't like those people so I don't like him.'"
The music mogul first met Swift in 2010 when Bieber opened for her on the "Fearless" tour.
Follow Bryan West, the USA TODAY Network's Taylor Swift reporter, on Instagram, TikTok and X as @BryanWestTV.