Scooter Braun thinks it’s time to lay his drama with Taylor Swift to rest.
Braun, 43, spoke out about the Max and Discover+ docuseries Taylor Swift vs. Scooter Braun: Bad Blood at the Bloomberg Screentime event in Los Angeles on Thursday, October 10, revealing that he hadn’t initially planned on watching the two-part series about his and Swift’s feud.
“I watched [the documentary] recently. I wasn’t going to watch it because I just thought it was going to be, like, another hit piece,” he told attendees, per event footage. “And I pretty much stayed quiet about this kind of stuff. And my dad called me and my mom, and they were like, we just watched it. We think you should watch it. So I did.”
Sharing both Braun and Swift’s sides of the story, the show recounts the drama surrounding Braun’s 2019 acquisition of Swift’s former record label, Big Machine Label Group, which resulted in him gaining the rights to her masters.
Taylor Swift and Scooter Braun’s Bad Blood: A Complete Timeline
“Look, it’s five years later,” Braun added. “I think, everyone, it’s time to move on. There were a lot of things that were misrepresented.”
The music mogul went on to note that it’s important for people to “communicate directly with each other” when dealing with conflict. “I think doing it out on social media and in front of the whole world is not the place,” he stated. “I think when people actually take the time to stand in front of each other have a conversation, they usually find out the monster’s not real. And that has not happened.”
Braun, who announced his retirement from music management in June, also praised Swift when asked what artist he’d been interested in representing. “I think the artist that’s one you should always bet on, and is already a huge star, and you can always bet on because they want it all the time, and they do whatever it takes to be present, is Taylor Swift,” he stated.
After Braun got ownership of the masters for her first six albums, Swift, 34, claimed in a lengthy Tumblr blog post in July 2019 that the sale of her masters was done without her consultation. “I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, [Big Machine Records founder and CEO] Scott Borchetta would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future,” she wrote at the time. “I had to make the excruciating choice to leave behind my past.”
Scooter Braun’s Ups and Downs Over the Years
Her post also featured a screenshot of a since-deleted Instagram photo Justin Bieber uploaded of himself FaceTiming Braun and Kanye West. “Taylor Swift what up,” Bieber, 30, captioned the post, poking fun at her infamous feud with the rapper, 47.
“This is Scooter Braun, bullying me on social media when I was at my lowest point,” Swift wrote of the upload. (Bieber later apologized for the Instagram post, calling it “distasteful and insensitive.”)
Braun’s ownership of her masters — which he later sold to Shamrock Holdings for over $300 million in November 2020 — prompted Swift to begin rerecording her first six albums. So far, Swift has released “Taylor’s Versions” of her records Fearless, Red, Speak Now and 1989, leaving Reputation and her self-titled debut album as the final two she will release.
Though the Taylor Swift vs. Scooter Braun: Bad Blood docuseries (released on June 21) did not directly involve Swift, the series featured a statement from the Grammy winner’s spokesperson. “None of these men will ever be able to take anything away from Taylor’s legacy as a songwriter, singer, director, philanthropist and advocate for artists’ rights,” the message read. “Taylor has completely moved on from this saga, and has turned what started out as an extremely painful situation into one of the most fulfilling endeavors of her life.”
