Taylor Swift’s longtime nemesis, Scooter Braun, has reacted to the news that the pop star has regained the rights to her master recordings.
The “Lover” superstar, 35, announced Friday that she had bought back the rights to her first six albums.
“I am happy for her,” Braun, 43, told The Independent in a statement Friday.
The feud between Swift and music mogul Braun began in 2019 when the latter’s Ithaca Holdings acquired Big Machine Records, giving him control of Swift’s first six albums. Swift called it her “worst-case scenario” at the time, accusing Braun of “manipulative bullying” and claiming she was denied the chance to buy her masters outright, instead being offered a deal to “earn” them back one album at a time.
In 2020, Braun sold the masters to Shamrock Capital for over $300 million. Swift criticized the sale, stating, “This was the second time my music had been sold without my knowledge.”
In August 2019, she announced she would be working to re-record her early albums as a way to gain ownership of her music. So far, she’s released Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Red (Taylor’s Version), Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) and 1989 (Taylor’s Version).
Braun’s statement comes days after it was reported that he was trying to “encourage” Shamrock Capital to sell Swift the master recordings.
However, a source close to contract negotiations told People on Friday that the deal happened “in spite of Scooter Braun, not because of him.”
“Contrary to a previous false report, there was no outside party who ‘encouraged’ this sale. All rightful credit for this opportunity should go to the partners at Shamrock Capital and Taylor’s Nashville-based management team only,” the source told People. “Taylor now owns all of her music, and this moment finally happened in spite of Scooter Braun, not because of him.”
“I’ve been bursting into tears of joy at random intervals ever since I found out that this is really happening. I really get to say these words: All of the music I’ve ever made… now belongs… to me. And all my music videos. All the concert films. The album art and photography. The unreleased songs. The memories. The magic. The madness. Every single era,” Swift wrote in an emotional statement posted to her website. “My entire life’s work.”
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“To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it. To my fans, you know how important this has been to me — so much so that I meticulously re-recorded and released four of my albums, calling them Taylor’s Version,” Swift added.
It’s unknown how much Swift paid to buy back all of the masters, though The Guardian reports that previous estimates of $600 million to $1 billion are inaccurately high.
