US artist Taylor Swift has condemned the purchase of Big Machine Label Group by Justin Bieber manager Scooter Braun via a post on Tumblr.
According to The Guardian, Braun's company Ithaca Holdings has acquired the group (owned by Scott Borchetta) which released all of Swift's albums and owns the masters of all releases prior to Swift's signing with Universal in November.
In addition to the Swift catalogue, Big Machine also look after artists including Sheryl Crow, Florida Georgia Line, Lady Antebellum and more.
Since the announcement of the sale, Swift has shared on the post that she "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. 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."
The post continues to say that she was subjected to years of "incessant, manipulative bullying" from Braun, including an event where Kim Kardashian "illegally recorded snippet of a phone call to be leaked and then Scooter got his two clients together to bully me online about it".
Artist Justin Bieber, who was involved in the incident, has since released a comment via Instagram apologising for his role as well as saying that Swift defending Braun.
"First of all i would like to apologize for posting that hurtful instagram post, at the time i thought it was funny but looking back it was distasteful and insensitive.." he begins, before sharing that Braun was not a part of the incident.
"Scooter has had your back since the days you graciously let me open up for you. As the years have passed we haven’t crossed paths and gotten to communicate our differences, hurts or frustrations," continues the post.
"So for you to take it to social media and get people to hate on scooter isn’t fair. What were you trying to accomplish by posting that blog? seems to me like it was to get sympathy u also knew that in posting that your fans would go and bully Scooter."
Swift and Braun are both yet to respond to Bieber's statement, though Braun's wife Yael has now weighed in via a statement on Instagram.
Update: Big Machine Label Group's Scott Borchetta has issued a statement via the company's website, titled "So, It’s Time For Some Truth…", sharing that he doubts that Swift "'woke up to the news when everyone else did'" as stated by the artist.
"Taylor’s dad, Scott Swift, was a shareholder in Big Machine Records, LLC. We first alerted all of the shareholders on Thursday, June 20th for an official shareholder’s call scheduled for Tuesday, June 25th," reads the statement.
"On the 6/25 call the shareholders were made aware of the pending deal with Ithaca Holdings and had 3 days to go over all of the details of the proposed transaction. We then had a final call on Friday, June 28th in which the transaction passed with a majority vote and 3 of the 5 shareholders voting ‘yes’ with 92% of the shareholder’s vote."
Out of courtesy, I personally texted Taylor at 9:06pm, Saturday, June 29th to inform her prior to the story breaking on the morning of Sunday, June 30th so she could hear it directly from me.
I guess it might somehow be possible that her dad Scott, 13 Management lawyer Jay Schaudies (who represented Scott Swift on the shareholder calls) or 13 Management executive and Big Machine LLC shareholder Frank Bell (who was on the shareholder calls) didn’t say anything to Taylor over the prior 5 days. I guess it’s possible that she might not have seen my text. But, I truly doubt that she 'woke up to the news when everyone else did'."
See the full statement here.
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