So the past 48 hours has been a wild time for entertainment news, as Taylor Swift publicised her latest beef, this time with Scooter Braun and Scott Borchetta.
Recap
Her explosive post on Tumblr shed light on the manipulative and toxic world of the music industry. There’s a lot, but the gist is mostly that $300 million worth of her work was sold out from under her by Scott Borchetta to Scooter Braun, who she reckons has been out to get her from day one. It’s pretty sad actually, and there’s a lengthier recap here.
Then, for some unknown reason, Justin Bieber got involved? He ran to the defence of Scooter, which landed him in hot water from other women in the industry. It was supposed to be an “apology”/ just-chill-out-you’re-delusional kinda thing, and was a fake AF gesture to apparently be friends with Taylor. Yeah, I don’t know what he was thinking either. (Although it’s worth noting Scooter Braun is Justin Bieber’s manager… do I smell a ‘forced social media post’ conspiracy??)
And then, Scooter Braun’s wife got involved, and basically called out Taylor Swift publicly for… calling out Scooter Braun publicly? And shamed her for using social media to communicate… while using social media to communicate. This whole thing is so batshit insane and ridiculous.
And now, Scott Borchetta has responded to Taylor Swift and his story is nothing like hers. Which is, of course, fucking crazy. So let’s dive right in there.
Scott Borchetta’s Response
Okay so, not only did Scott release a statement – he actually including text messages that are allegedly from Taylor Swift?!
“Taylor had every chance in the world to own not just her master recordings, but every video, photograph, everything associated to her career. She chose to leave.”
Scooter said that there’s no way Taylor would have found out on the morning news because her dad’s a shareholder in the company, and all shareholders were notified of the deal. He said they even voted on it, and that 3/5 of the shareholders said yes. This obvs contrasts heavily with Taylor’s account.
“I guess it might somehow be possible that her dad Scott, 13 Management lawyer Jay Schaudies (who represented Scott Swift on the shareholder calls) or 13 Management executive and Big Machine LLC shareholder Frank Bell (who was on the shareholder calls) didn’t say anything to Taylor over the prior 5 days. I guess it’s possible that she might not have seen my text. But, I truly doubt that she “woke up to the news when everyone else did.”
He then said he also texted her about it as a courtesy, which he included in his statement.
“Here is the text I sent on the evening of June 29 at 9:05pm:
Dear Taylor,
Hope all is well and congratulations on the success of your first two singles from “Lover”!
I can’t wait to hear the entire album…
I wanted to pass along to you the same courtesy that you passed along to me in regard to my future.
Tomorrow morning (Sunday, June 30th) at 10a central, the Wall Street Journal will announce that I am entering into a merger/acquisition with Scooter Braun and Ithaca Holdings. This move will give us more pop culture super-power than ever before and I’m so excited about the future.
I want you to know that I will continue to be the proud custodian of your previous works and will continue to keep you and your team abreast of all future plans for releases of you work.
Nothing but the best,
Scott.”
As if he hadn’t already put us all in shock, he then added a screenshot of their deal points:
You can read the full statement here.
So WTF Does All This Mean?
Taylor Swift hasn’t responded yet, and I’m honestly so confused. I was team Taylor when I read her take down, tho I assumed that she was probably milking it a bit. Now, I’m not so sure.
Management in the music industry is notorious for being exploitative, and apparently JB and Ariana Grande have said things about Scooter before that have been hushed up. It all seems a bit conspiracy-ish, but after all the shit Ke$ha went through with her management/rapist, I really don’t know what to think. We’re tentative Team Taylor for now, and I’m dying to see her response to this bombshell.
Image Sources: Big Machine Label Group website, GIPHY.
