The ongoing drama between Taylor Swift, her former record label exec Scott Borchetta, and her new music catalog owner Scooter Braun has really been something to see the past couple days.
If you haven’t been around to follow what’s going on, oh man! You have missed a LOT!
This is one of the most salacious and drama-filled celeb showdowns we’ve seen in some time, and we are totally here for it!!!
So if you’re just now getting caught up to speed on Swift, Braun, Borchetta, and all the drama surrounding Big Machine Label Group, you’ve come to the right place!
Let’s get you all caught up on what’s going on (below)!!!
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Braun Buys Big Machine
This all started early Sunday morning, when the announcement came through — first in the Wall Street Journal — that Scooter Braun had dropped a couple hundred million dollars to buy up the Big Machine Label Group music catalog. Of course, that catalog included everything Swift had ever produced on her first six albums.
Think of all the iconic music — and it’s not even just Taylor! Florida Georgia Line and Thomas Rhett are among the artists who are currently signed to the label (Swift left several years ago after her first six studio albums). The sale also includes some of the works of other artists, such as Sunny Sweeney, The Mavericks, Reba McEntire, Hank Williams Jr., Ronnie Dunn (Brooks & Dunn), and Aaron Lewis (Staind) — just to name a few who have all done business with Borchetta’s Big Machine in the past.
But as far as $300 million purchases go, this one went through without much of a hitch — a welcome out for the small business here after having been long ago orchestrated by Borchetta himself with Scooter in mind. Borchetta, by the way, landed softly at Braun’s holding company, getting his own nice new title and job out of the whole thing.
In fact, the news itself was such a seemingly-simple business first deal when it was initially announced that pretty much everybody in the entertainment world missed it! Until…
Taylor’s Open Letter
The thing that really broke it all open was Taylor’s Tumblr letter — an open response to the sale that let fans know she was NOT feeling it with Braun now in control of her catalog. As we reported at the time, her open letter explicitly called out Kanye West and Kim Kardashian West for bullying (and revenge porn!), while also pointing out (via picture) that Justin Bieber had long been in on the bullying game, too.
Those were all clients of Braun, Taylor noted, and thus it seemed like the fix was in from the start for the manager to control all of her art and, in turn, control her as an artist. Fans quickly dove in, getting #WeStandWithTaylor trending on Twitter as they called out Braun’s business decision to control an artist who clearly wasn’t interested in having him in her life. This was only the beginning, though — for much of Sunday, June 30 and well into Monday, July 1, the Swift-Braun feud and ongoing controversy (with off shoots!) would come to dominate much of entertainment media.
Justin Responds (Weakly…)
One of the first major responses after Swift’s initial open letter came from none other than the Biebs himself, who took the time to post his take on Instagram, addressing his own open letter back to Taylor. Though Justin’s wife commented “gentleman” on the pic, clearly proud of her man, the vast majority of fans and followers panned the Canadian pop star’s “apology,” questioning his motives and sincerity here.
Along with his weak non-apology, the Biebs flipped the script a bit and opted to blame the victim, trying to gaslight Taylor in that very same letter by telling her it was actually the other way around — and that she had been trying to bully him... Uhhhhh, not really, Justin.
He wasn’t the only one who came through with accusations, though; Scooter’s wife Yael Cohen Braun couldn’t resist her own attempt to defend her husband and call out Taylor, openly minimizing the singer’s feelings about her music catalog effectively being ripped right out from under her. Yeah, Yael, the next time you create some art (or your husband does the same), maybe we’ll listen to you, but until then…
THANK YOU, NEXT!!!
Scooter’s Deleted Celebration
It came to light on Monday that early in the controversy, just hours after he’d officially acquired Big Machine, Scooter Braun posted his own premature celebration about how he just “bought” Taylor. It was an ugly celebration, but thankfully it was one caught on social media screenshots, as Braun VERY quickly deleted the offending pic from his IG Stories tab!
Basically, Scooter got caught re-sharing a buddy’s social media post in which the guy alluded to the fact that Braun was able to “buy Taylor Swift.” Scooter very quickly deleted the image itself, but the damage had been done — so much so the backlash against Braun actually intensified for a bit after much of the now-deleted IG post news came to light. It’s certainly the opposite of the man that Braun’s allies wanted to portray after the purchase… but oh, well!
Backlash Against Braun
The now-deleted celebration screenshot bragging about ‘buying Taylor Swift’ certainly didn’t help, but Scooter was facing major social media backlash pretty much ever since the moment that Swift hit publish on Tumblr. Thousands and thousands of fans took to the tweets to complain about Braun’s lack of foresight and complete insensitivity here; still others called out Swift for some of her issues, while still impugning Braun’s character based on his decision to buy up her music catalog in such a sudden, shocking fashion.
Scooter chose more or less to lay low through all of this, perhaps hoping it would die down, or something. It didn’t, of course (here we are, after all). Eventually, his own wife was among those forced to come to his defense when Taylor’s supporters grew VERY loud and boisterous. Regardless, even now that he’s that much richer with a really, really good music catalog under his ownership umbrella, it’s hard to pick a path out here where Scooter looks good… especially when underwhelming Canadian pop star Justin Bieber is the manager’s top defender…
Celebs Pick Sides
Just like the fans and followers did all across social media on Sunday and well into Monday, so too did celebrities, picking sides and openly showing their support for Taylor, or for Scooter. In Taylor’s corner, just to name a few: Halsey, Selena Gomez, Selena Gomez’s mom Mandy Teefey, Haim, Todrick Hall, Ellen Page and her dancer/choreographer wife, and many, many more! For what it’s worth, women weren’t scared at all to come out of the woodwork and support Swift… but men? Not a word. Where was Shawn Mendes when the news broke? What about Brendon Urie?! Hello?? ANYBODY HOME?!?!
For Braun and Borchetta, the support list was much shorter, at least as far as celebs go, and it ended up being pretty predictable: many of Scooter’s own clients like Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande came out with their support (though to Ariana’s credit, hers was extremely mild, not about Taylor, and quickly deleted when controversy arose). Demi Lovato also came up big on IG Stories late Sunday night, showing some serious love for Braun, and setting Todrick Hall the hell off in the process. Not much to be surprised about here, though; it makes perfect sense that Scooter’s clients want to back their super manager — and so too does it make sense his former clients (like Hall) may swing the other way.
Borchetta’s ‘Truth’ Blog
On Monday morning, Big Machine Label Group founder Scott Borchetta — you know, the guy who essentially caused all of this by selling Taylor’s catalog to Scooter in the first place — once again inserted himself into the fray by publishing a blog post on the record label’s website that claimed to be the “truth” of what happened. Now there was some valid content in the post — namely, that Borchetta contended Taylor had previously been given an opportunity to purchase her own catalog, and that the singer may have known for several days about the sale to Braun, rather than learning of it the same Sunday morning just like the rest of us (a claim that is refuted by other reports).
But Borchetta also claimed to have published text messages (without screenshots!) between him and Taylor that go a long way to help his case and can’t be verified without, you know, the actual receipts. Plus, all this ‘truth’ is sort of a slap in the face if he never actually gave Taylor a realistic opportunity to purchase her own music catalog, and it’s still not clear that he did, despite what he’d like us to believe.
Justin Feels The Heat… And Gets Blocked!
While Taylor and Scooter continue to duke it out online, there’s really been one VERY clear loser in all of this… Justin Bieber!
The Baby singer was roundly criticized by literally everybody on Twitter in response to his brutally bad attempt at a public apology (which turned into more of a public accusation session…). He then got aired out on Tumblr, where Swift herself liked a post that appeared to confirm the allegation that Justin cheated on Selena at one point. Hoooo boy!!!!!
Later, Ellen Page’s wife Emma Portner called Bieber to the curb yet again (below) for his sh*tty dealings with other people and his sh*tty defenses of people like Chris Brown… not to mention his issues this weekend with Taylor:
AMEN!!!
Finally, the Canadian got himself blocked by Swift — along with Lovato — on her active Spotify account, likely inspiring thousands of Swift fans to do the same on their Spotify accounts, as well. Couple that with heavy, heavy criticism in the comment sections by, well, pretty much everybody across the spectrum and it’s clear that maybe Justin should’ve stayed out of this one!
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Well there you have it, Perezcious readers!
You’re now all caught up — well, for now, at least — on all the goings-on around Taylor, Scooter, the Biebs, and all the rest of the record label drama that first erupted over this past weekend. Whew!!! Quite a bit to look after there, right?!
Any big-time reactions to all this news, then, y’all?! We’d absolutely love to hear from you on this one! Sound OFF with all of your thoughts on Taylor, Justin, Scooter, and more, all in the comment section (below)!!!
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