Scooter Braun has offered his side of the story about his bad blood with Taylor Swift.
To recap, Scooter acquired Taylor's former record company, Big Machine, in June of 2019 -- and, by extension, ownership of her master recordings up until her album Reputation. The same day the deal was announced, Taylor lamented in an emotional Tumblr post that the buyout was her "worst case scenario" and accused Braun of being a manipulative bully.
Taylor has subsequently been famously re-recording her Big Machine album catalog in an attempt to reclaim ownership of her masters, while Braun has since sold the rights to Taylor's first six albums for a reported $300 million+.
Now, Braun is sharing his perspective on what happened. He told MSNBC, "The person who owned Taylor’s masters throughout her career was not myself, and when I was buying a record label, I actually said to that group, ‘If at any point she wants to come back and be a part of this conversation, please let me know because I wouldn’t do this deal."
"I was shown an email, which has now been made public now, where she stated that she wanted to move on that negotiation and wasn’t interested in doing that deal anymore," he continued. Taylor claimed at the time that she was never offered the opportunity to purchase her masters outright, without additional contractual obligations.
Talking about Taylor's attempt to regain ownership of her music, Braun said, "I think Taylor has every right to re-record. She has every right to pursue her masters, and I wish her nothing but well, and I have zero interest in saying anything bad about her."
"I’ve never said anything bad about her in the past, and I won’t start to now," he added. "The only thing I disagree with is weaponizing a fan base." As previously reported, Braun said in a since-deleted Instagram post that Taylor's fans were sending death threats to his family.