On Sunday (June 30), the music world went crazy with the news that talent manager Scooter Braun bought Big Machine Records. Wall Street Journal reported that Justin Bieber‘s manager bought all of Big Machine Label Group LLC for more than $300 million. That includes the six albums Taylor Swift released on the label.
Hours after the news broke, the “You Need to Calm Down” singer couldn’t calm down. She had to speak out on the purchase and she had a lot to say. Swift took to her Tumblr account to get her feelings out.
The image with her post is a screenshot from Bieber’s Instagram account. In the photo, it appears Bieber is on FaceTime with Braun, Kanye West and another man. Swift circled Braun in red writing, “This is Scooter Braun, bullying me on social media when I was at my lowest point. He’s about to own all the music I’ve ever made.”
That image alone made her point very clear but Swift didn’t stop there. She continued with a letter.
“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,” Swift writes. “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.”
She added that she learned about the purchase at the same time as the rest of the world. “All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I’ve received at his hands for years,” she says before giving examples that include both Kim Kardashian and her husband, West.
“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. And when that man says ‘Music has value,’ he means its value is beholden to men who had no part in creating it. 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.”
Swift signed the letter with a broken heart and the words, “sad and grossed out.”
Read the full letter from Swift on her Tumblr account and read all the details of the Big Machine purchase here.
