The music industry is known for being pretty cutthroat.
Artists complain all the time about exploitation and the rights that they have (or don’t have) to their work.
The latest music industry scandal involving Taylor Swift, Scooter Braun, and Justin Bieber is one for the history books.
Or at least for the social media history books, which usually hold public attention for a day or two before people move on to the next thing.
It all started when news broke that Scooter Braun (famous for managing Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, among others) would be purchasing Taylor Swift’s back catalogue.
Scooter (stupid name) is also the guy who is encouraging Bieber to fight Tom Cruise.
According to Mashable, Taylor and Scooter are not the best of friends, evident in the post that Taylor made on Tumblr when she found out he had bought her work.
Noting that she found out the news the same time everyone else did, Swift wrote on Tumblr, “All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I’ve received at his hands for years,” calling out when Braun’s client, Kanye West, “organized a revenge porn music video which strips my body naked,” among other events.
“Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy. Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.”
Wow, that got dark. Taylor goes on to note:
“When I left my masters in Scott’s hands, I made peace with the fact that eventually he would sell them. Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter. Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words ‘Scooter Braun’ escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to. He knew what he was doing; they both did. Controlling a woman who didn’t want to be associated with them. In perpetuity. That means forever.”
It didn’t end there. TMZ did a play by play of the events as they unfolded, including a response from Scooter’s wife:
Then Justin Bieber got involved:
It’s at this point that Seth would like me to point out that Bieber’s use of ‘screenshotted’ is clearly incorrect.
Everyone knows the past tense of ‘screenshot’ is ‘screenshat’.
Moving on to the post that Bieber references in the first line of the above, courtesy of Jezebel:
Rude.
Bieber’s post is unlikely to lead to any reconciliation. Taylor’s ongoing feud with Kanye West will probably go on forever, and the ‘Swiftys’ (or whatever Tay Tay’s fans are called) will likely go to town on Scooter’s socials.
Another day, another feud.
