Scooter Braun's Shady Take On The Taylor Swift Masters Debacle Has Swifties Going Nuclear

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Taylor Swift and Scooter Braun still seem to have bad blood even after Swift bought back all her masters. For those who aren't caught up on the backstory, here's the basics. Braun's company Ithaca Holdings bought Big Machine Records in 2019 from Scott Borchetta, which meant he owned the masters to Swift's first six albums. Swift wrote a heartfelt message about the sale on Tumblr at the time, and she made it clear that she wasn't happy that it was Braun who controlled her work. "All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I've received at his hands for years," she wrote. She also noted how she'd tried to gain control of her masters but wasn't able to. 

This led to her rerecording those first six albums, referring to them as "Taylor's Version"; four of which have been completed and released. Braun then sold Swift's masters in 2020 to Shamrock Holdings for hundreds of millions; Swift said she only found out about the second masters sale after the fact and was upset that money from her music would still be going to Braun. There's even a documentary about it all.

Swift finally bought her masters from Shamrock Holdings in May 2025. Braun was asked about all the drama in a July episode of the podcast "Question Everything with Danielle Robay," and Swifties weren't impressed with his take.

Scooter Braun revealed on the "Question Everything with Danielle Robay" podcast that he didn't have any "nefarious reasons" for buying Taylor Swift's early music. That was a phrase Swift used to describe the situation in her Time magazine interview when she was their person of the year. And as for her rerecords, he saw it as a plus for himself as well as her, saying, "each time she released one, you saw a spike in the original catalog ... We did really well with the asset." 

People weren't happy with this perspective. One person posted on X (formerly known as Twitter), "He doesn't see people as people but business opportunities and it's infuriating." Another said, "Tell me you're irrelevant and grasping for attention without telling me."

Others thought that Braun was just trying to spin things to help save face. "He just wants to make it seem like he wasn't negatively impacted by the re-records when he obviously was," via X. And some thought Braun was completely ignoring the emotional element to the situation of Taylor as a person. A critic posted: "Taylor didn't consent. She didn't sell. She wasn't even given the chance. Scooter profited off her life's work without her and now wants credit because she turned the pain into power. That's not a 'win-win.' That's exploitation."

Scooter Braun was asked on the podcast if Taylor Swift's song "Vigilante S***" from her "Midnights" album released in 2022 was about Braun's messy divorce from Yael Cohen in 2021. He dismissed the idea, saying: "Me and my ex-wife laugh about that stuff — we don't even call each other 'ex.' That's like my partner. ... So no, I never thought that was about us. Great strategy move, but nah." He may not see any connection, but they sure do. Fans also think the song "Karma" from the same album is, at least in part, in reference to the Braun situation.

Then in the podcast, Braun directed his attention directly at Swifties, knowing that they would be reacting to what he had to say, but that he wouldn't be bothered, "You know, my response to that is they made the horrible miscalculation that I care." 

Swift fans just didn't seem to believe him. One person said, "He can not go a day without saying her name." Plenty of people agreed with one commenting: "He's literally doing a PR tour regarding the topic. He cares so much it keeps him up at night lol. She's living rent free in him head." No response from Swift yet about any of Braun's statements. Our guess is that now that she owns her music, she's finally clean of all that noise.