Taylor Swift took to Tumblr on Sunday to voice her displeasure following news that the well-known music manager and entertainment industry mogul Scooter Braun had acquired the rights to her music catalog in a massive $300 million deal.
Braun’s Ithaca Holdings acquired Scott Borchetta’s Big Machine Label Group, the label that Swift was signed to from 2006 to 2017 before she moved to Universal Music Group.
The acquisition of Taylor’s catalog by Braun’s Ithaca Holdings was part of a deal backed by Carlyle Group to acquire Borchetta’s Big Machine Label Group, according to Billboard, and it means that Swift will not personally own or exercise rights over the first six albums in her catalog, CNN reports.
Taylor said she learned that Braun’s company Ithaca Holdings was buyer only after the deal was made public. She accused Braun of having bullied her in the past and said she felt “sad and grossed out” to learn that it was Braun who acquired her music catalog.
“I learned about Scooter Braun’s purchase of my masters as it was announced to the world,” Taylor Swift wrote on Tumblr. “All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I’ve received at his hands for years.”
“This is my worst case scenario. This is what happens when you sign a deal at fifteen to someone for whom the term ‘loyalty’ is clearly just a contractual concept,” she continued. “I left my past in Scott’s hands and not my future. And hopefully, young artists or kids with musical dreams will read this and learn about how to better protect themselves in a negotiation. You deserve to own the art you make.”
“Sad and grossed out,” she signed off.
Since Taylor published those bitter words on Tumblr people have been asking who Scooter Braun is. Here is everything you need to know.
Who is Scooter Braun?
Scott Samuel “Scooter” Braun was born in New York City to Ervin, a dentist, and Susan Braun, an orthodontist, on June 18, 1981, which makes him 38 years old.
He is of Jewish heritage and his paternal grandparents managed to survive the Nazi Holocaust in Europe. They immigrated to the U.S. just before the Hungarian Revolution that was brutally suppressed by the Soviets after the Second World War.
Scooter has four siblings — Liza, Cornelio, Sam, and Adam. His siblings also included Sam Mahanga and Cornelio Giubunda, young members of the Mozambican junior national basketball team that his parents adopted
Scooter was raised in Cos Cob, Connecticut. He attended Greenwich High School where he was class president. He played basketball in high school.
He attended Atlanta’s Emory University where he also played basketball. But he dropped out of college at the age of 20 after Jermaine Dupri invited him to become the head of marketing at So So Def label.
Braun met Dupri while he worked as a party organizer during his student years at Emory University. He became So So Def’s head of marketing at 20.
Scooter Braun discovered Justin Bieber at the age of 12. He contacted Bieber’s parents after seeing the talented future star performing a song by the hip hop artist Ne-Yo in a YouTube video and helped Bieber start his music career.
Scooter Braun is a well-known talent manager, entrepreneur, entertainment industry mogul and philanthropist. He founded SB Projects, the entertainment media company that manages A-list artists such as Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, Tori Kelly, Carly Rae Jepson, Zac Brown, and Hilary Duff.
He is also the co-founder of the comic-book film studio, Mythos Studios, with David Maisel, the founding chairman of Marvel Studios.
He was one of the organizers behind the 2018 March for Our Lives in which tens of thousands marched for stricter gun laws.
Scooter married to Yael Cohen, the activist and founder of F**k Cancer, on July 6, 2014. The couple welcomed their first child Jagger Joseph Braun on February 6, 2015, and their second child Levi Magnus Braun on November 29, 2016.
The third child, Hart Violet was born on December 1, 2018.