Scooter Braun Reflects on Taylor Swift Masters Feud, Reveals Where He Stands with Justin Bieber

During an appearance on The Diary of a CEO podcast, the Hybe America CEO reflected on his feud with Swift, and opened up about what he described as undeserved "hate" he received.

The drama between Braun and Swift, 35, began after the former purchased the singer's catalog -- including her first six albums -- when he bought her former label, Big Machine Label Group, from Scott Borchetta in 2019.

"When I bought Big Machine, I thought I was going to work with all the artists on Big Machine. I thought it was gonna be an exciting thing," Braun, 43, told podcast host Steven Bartlett. "I knew that Taylor -- she and I had only met three times, I think in my life, three or four times, and one of the times, it was years earlier, it was really a great engagement. She invited me to a private party. We respected each other. We had a great engagement."

He said between the time he last saw Swift and when he purchased Big Machine, he began managing Kanye West, and was also managing Justin Bieber. According to Braun, he was aware that his clients could be an issue for Swift.

"I knew she didn't get along with them," he said. "I had a feeling -- this is where my arrogance came in -- I had a feeling she probably didn't like me because I managed them. But I thought that once this announcement happened, she would talk to me, see who I am, and we would work together."

He continued, "The announcement came out, I'm calling Scott Borchetta, and saying, 'Hey, send me her number! I talked to Thomas Rhett, and he's excited. And I just talked to this person, and they're excited. I'm calling Florida Georgia Line next.'"

However, in the wake of the deal, Swift drew a clear line in the sand, with the Grammy winner sharing a Tumblr post, in which she called Braun's purchasing of her masters her "worst nightmare," and claimed she "wasn't given an opportunity to buy." She also accused Braun of "incessant, manipulative bullying" in the past.

Braun said he was "shocked" over Swift's reaction.

"This Tumblr [post] comes out, and it says all this stuff, and I was just, like, shocked," he told Bartlett.

"It's been five, six years, I don't need to go back into it," Braun continued, before reflecting on what he learned from the public battle.

"What I can tell you is everything in life is a gift. Having that experience allows me to have empathy for the people I worked with who I would always say, 'Yeah, I understand," he said. "But I never knew what it was like to be on the global stage like that. I never knew what criticism like that felt like."

"The biggest gift that I got from that was understanding that all the praise I had received up until that moment was not deserved," he added. "All the hate I got after that moment was not deserved, because none of these people knew me."

"She didn't know me. This person didn't know me," he claimed. "This person met me three times. They didn't know me. I can show respect for all of them because I don't know them. So I can love them where they're at."

Looking back, Braun said "the gift of pain was awareness," before adding that when something is "deeply unfair" you have "look at everything and realize the role you played."

He ultimately called the experience a "gift," and said he's "grateful," despite the backlash being "very hard" on his family, including his now-ex-wife Yael Cohen and their kids: Jagger, Levi, and Hart.

"I don't want to hold any hatred," Braun said. "Everyone moves on."

"For me, I choose to see it as a gift," he added. "I choose to see it as being able to have a perspective that very few people in the world have of knowing what that's like. Of feeling that on a global level."

"Pain," Bartlett said, to which Braun replied, "Yeah ... it just felt unfair."

Braun later sold Swift's masters to Shamrock Capital in 2020. After Swift released four re-recorded albums, she bought back her music from Shamrock Capital last month, with the sale being a reported $360 million, according to Billboard.

Following the news, Braun told TMZ that he's "happy for her."

Meanwhile, also during his appearance on The Diary of a CEO podcast, Braun opened up about his relationship with Justin Bieber, whom he discovered when the singer was only 13.

After decades of working together, he and the "Ghost" singer parted ways in 2023. This came after Bieber sold his music catalog to Hipgnosis Songs Capital in 2022 for a reported $200 million.

Amid rumors of a rift between him and Bieber, Braun shared where he stands with the Grammy winner. "[It's] not the same that it was," he admitted.

"I think there comes a point where, I understand, he probably wants to go on and show that he can do it. We worked together for so long and we had such extreme success," he continued. "I think you get to a point as a man where you want to show the world, you can do it on your own. I completely respect that. I think at this point that’s what he's doing."

Braun -- who retired from artist management last year -- added, "At that point, it had been a couple years where I knew I wanted to do something else, and I wanted to find out who I was. I wanted to experiment with, you know, a different career and we were both communicating enough with each other. The writing was on the wall."