Swift feud turns ugly as texts leak

Taylor Swift has lashed out at the founder of her old record label Big Machine, Scott Borchetta and Justin Bieber’s manager Scooter Braun, after Borchetta sold the label and all of its rights — including Swift’s entire past six-album catalogue — to the talent manager.

Braun previously represented Swift’s nemesis Kanye West and currently boasts acts including Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande and Demi Lovato on his roster.

In the latest stunning development, Borchetta has penned a blog posted on the Big Machine record label website titled “So, It’s Time For Some Truth,” in which he refutes Swift’s claims that she was not given prior warning of the deal.

“Taylor had every chance in the world to own not just her master recordings, but every video, photograph, everything associated to her career. She chose to leave,” he writes.

He also published a private text he says Swift had sent him in November last year, announcing her intention to leave Big Machine records.

“Owning my masters was very important to me, but I’ve since realized that there are things that mean even more to me in the bigger picture. I had a choice whether to bet on my past or to bet on the future and I think knowing me, you can guess which one I chose,” Swift wrote in the text.

In a furious Tumblr post on Sunday, Swift, 29, accused Braun of being complicit with bullying she claims she suffered at the hands of West and Bieber, as well as blasting Borchetta’s business tactics regarding her first six records.
 

Taylor Swift is not happy that Scooter Braun now owns her back catalogue. pic.twitter.com/GuCfxsYhwD

— Ryan Love △⃒⃘ (@RyanJL) June 30, 2019

“For years I asked, pleaded for a chance to own my work. Instead, I was given an opportunity to sign back up to Big Machine Records and ‘earn’ one album back at a time, one for every new one I turned in,” she wrote. “I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future. I had to make the excruciating choice to leave behind my past. Music I wrote on my bedroom floor and videos I dreamed up and paid for from the money I earned playing in bars, then clubs, then arenas, then stadiums.”

She added, “Some fun facts about today’s news: I learned about Scooter Braun’s purchase of my masters as it was announced to the world. All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I’ve received at his hands for years.” To illustrate her point, she included a screenshot of Braun, Bieber and West that Bieber posted to Instagram in August 2016:

The You Need to Calm Down singer accused Braun of being a party to Kim Kardashian’s infamous recording of Swift and West’s “snippet” of a phone call in which she appeared to give her blessing to the lyrics to his song Famous.

Kardashian posted the video to Snapchat after Swift denied giving West permission to use her name in the song. She later claimed she objected to being called “that b — h” in the track, a detail which wasn’t mentioned in Kardashian’s clip.

This all happened about a year after West and Swift appeared to publicly make up and reportedly even discussed a potential collaboration.

In her furious missive, Swift claimed that Kardashian’s video recording and release were illegal. She also pointed out that in the Famous music video, a wax figure of her likeness (and numerous others) appears nude, which she likened to “revenge porn.”

“Now Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy,” she fumed. “Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.”

The singer described the predicament as her “worst case scenario” and lamented signing a record deal with Big Machine when she was just 15 years old and alluded that sexism was partly behind Borchetta’s decision to sell the label.

“When that man says ‘Music has value,’ he means its value is beholden to men who had no part in creating it,” she wrote. “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.”

Justin Bieber has today responded to the furore, posting an old photo of he and Swift together to his Instagram account — along with a lengthy caption addressed directly to the singer.

Bieber posted a throwback selfie with Swift and claimed that Braun discouraged him from writing “Taylor Swift what up” on his Instagram caption. While the Babysinger was diplomatic, he also accused Swift, though gently, of trying to “get sympathy” with her blog post and that she used her platform to get her fans to bully Braun.

Model and actress Cara Delevigne commented under Bieber’s post, telling him he “should be lifting women up instead of tearing them down because you feel threatened.”