Why Former Music Manager Scooter Braun Has ‘Bad Blood’ with Taylor Swift

"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links."

From Kanye West to Justin Bieber, Scooter Braun led fruitful partnerships with some of the biggest names in modern music. However, a longstanding feud with pop megastar Taylor Swift is what has the former manager back in the spotlight.

The rift between Braun and The Tortured Poets Department singer is the subject of Taylor Swift vs. Scooter Braun: Bad Blood, a new documentary now streaming on Max. The two-part program examines Braun’s highly publicized purchase of the rights to Swift’s first six albums in 2019 and the public outcry that followed.

Bad Blood arrives just after Braun announced on Monday he will no longer be working in music management. The 43-year-old had long been one of the most polarizing figures in the industry as the founder of SB Projects, a management company that has represented artists such as Bieber, Ariana Grande, and Demi Lovato.

Here’s everything you need to know about Braun, his career, and feud with Swift.

Education and Early Career

Growing up, Scott “Scooter” Samuel Braun followed his family’s aspirations in basketball, not music. In an 2018 interview with The Ringer, he explained how his father coached high school and AAU hoops, and his three younger brothers played NCAA Division I at Brown, Georgetown, and American universities.

Braun starred on the court at Greenwich High School in Connecticut and—wanting to play as a freshman in college—attended Emory University in Atlanta. But within a year, he began to focus less on basketball and more on lavish parties he began throwing at the Riviera nightclub. Soon, according to Greenwich Magazine, music giants like Usher and Ludacris were clamoring to attend a Braun bash. “My friends will say it was by instinct,” Braun told the magazine. “Part of it was the hustler mentality that my father wanted to get out of me. I was very quick. I figured things out.”

Get the latest news about your favorite musicians by subscribing to our free newsletter.

According to an Atlanta-based blog, Braun accepted a job in the marketing department of So So Def records at age 19 and, within a year, was promoted to executive director of marketing. He dropped out of school but quickly became a rising star in the hip-hop world, throwing parties in five major U.S. cities for Ludacris and Eminem’s 2002 Anger Management Tour, as well as Atlanta in conjunction with the 2003 NBA All-Star Weekend.

His reputation as a manager continued to build over the next few years, until his acquisition of a teenage YouTube star cemented his status as a music heavyweight.

From Bieber to Big Business

Braun founded SB Projects in 2007 and quickly aligned himself with a couple of musicians on the rise. Already having discovered rapper Asher Roth through social media, Braun found a YouTube video of a young Justin Bieber singing Ne-Yo’s “So Sick.” According to The New York Times, he was so impressed that he contacted Bieber’s mother through school board members and convinced her to let the Canadian teenager meet with him. Braun and Usher signed Bieber to their record label, Raymond Braun Media Group, by the end of 2008.

In addition to Bieber, Braun has added other star clients like Psy, Carly Rae Jepsen, Ava Max, David Guetta, Lil Dicky, and Kelly Rowland. He signed Ariana Grande to his record label in 2013 and became Demi Lovato’s manager in 2019.

Braun expanded SB Projects into other forms of media, with its movie and TV division responsible for projects like the 2011 concert movie Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, as well as the CBS drama series Scorpion and FX comedy Dave. The company is also an investor of companies like Uber, Spotify, and Pinterest, according to its website.

All told, Celebrity Net Worth estimates Braun’s net worth at around $500 million.

The Taylor Swift Controversy

Braun used his expansive capital to complete a purchase of Big Machine Records in 2019. The $300 million acquisition gave him control of the music catalog from Taylor Swift’s first six albums. But he had previously sowed bad blood with the pop star for his minor role in her much-publicized feud with Kanye West, a former client.

In 2016—seven years after his viral interruption of Swift’s acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards—West released the song “Famous” while partnered with Braun. The track and its accompanying video featured sexual references about Swift, which she insisted she never approved.

Swift was quick to condemn Braun’s Big Machine deal, saying on Tumblr: “Now Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy. Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.” She also accused Braun of coordinating his clients into bullying her.

Braun eventually sold Swift’s catalog to a private company in November 2020, with the singer quickly announcing in a tweet that she had begun re-recording her songs to own the rights to the masters.

The music executive finally addressed the situation in a 2021 interview with Variety, saying that he offered to meet with Swift multiple times and was refused. “I regret and it makes me sad that Taylor had that reaction to the deal,” he said. “All of what happened has been very confusing and not based on anything factual.”

The dispute tarnished his reputation in the eyes of many music fans. Now, the controversy is back in the public eye with the June 21 debut of the Bad Blood documentary.

Watch Taylor Swift vs. Scooter Braun: Bad Blood on Max

His Next Move

In summer 2023, it was reported a number of A-list clients—including Grande, Lovato, and Idina Menzel—had cut management ties with Braun. No concrete explanation was given for the wave of defectors from SB Projects, but it sparked speculation about Braun’s future.

According to Variety, Braun had only been tangentially involved in the careers of his biggest clients in recent years, as other executives handle day-to-day operations. Sources told the outlet he was focused on his role of CEO of HYBE America, the South Korean entertainment company behind K-pop band BTS. He sold Ithaca Holdings, the parent company of SB Projects, to HYBE in 2021 for more than $1 billion. “He’s getting out of management—he has been for years. That’s the real story,” one source told Variety.

This was proven true Monday, when Braun announced on Instagram he was dropping out of music management. Instead, he plans to fully devote his time to his roles as board member of HYBE and CEO of HYBE America. “Every client I have had the privilege of working with has changed my life, and I know many of them are just beginning to see the success they deserve. I will cheer for every single one of them,” Braun said.

You Might Also Like

• Nicole Richie’s Surprising Adoption Story

• The Story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard and Her Mother

• Queen Camilla's Life in Photos