Taylor Swift has taken aim at Scooter Braun during her speech at Billboard’s 2019 Women In Music event.
While accepting the Woman of the Decade Award, Swift slammed Braun, who owns the masters of all Swift's releases prior to her signing with Universal last November, stating he came in and purchased Big Machine Label Group without her “approval, consultation, or consent”.
“After I was denied the chance to purchase my music outright, my entire catalogue was sold to Scooter Braun's Ithaca Holdings in a deal that I'm told was funded by the Soros Family, 23 Capital, and the Carlyle Group,” Swift said.
“Yet to this day none of these investors have ever bothered to contact me or my team directly. To perform their due diligence on their investment. On their investment in me. To ask how I might feel about the new owner of my art. The music I wrote. The videos I created. Photos of me, my handwriting, my album designs. And of course, Scooter never contacted me or my team to discuss it prior to the sale or even when it was announced.
“I'm fairly certain he knew exactly how I would feel about it though. And let me just say that the definition of the toxic male privilege in our industry is people saying, ‘But he's always been nice to me,’ when I'm raising valid concerns about artists and their rights to own their music. And of course he's nice to you. If you're in this room, you have something he needs.
“The fact is that private equity is what enabled this man to think, according to his own social media post, that he could buy me. But I'm obviously not going willingly. Yet the most amazing thing was to discover that it would be the women in our industry who would have my back and show me the most vocal support at one of the most difficult times, and I will never, ever forget it. Like, ever.”
Last month, the dispute reached boiling point as Swift alleged Scott Borchetta and Braun of Big Machine Label Group said she was "not allowed to perform [her] old songs on television", as they believed it would constitute a re-recording of her music - something her ongoing contract with Big Machine forbids her to do until 2020.
You can watch the full speech below.
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