Newsman:
The singer took to Twitter on Monday to post a lengthy and emotional message about the music executive, who acquired the master recordings of her first six albums from her former label — Big Machine Label Group in June 2019 — despite her objections. At the time, Swift called the agreement her “worst case scenario.”
“As you know, for the past year I’ve been actively trying to regain ownership of my master recordings. With that goal in mind, my team attempted to enter into negotiations with Scooter Braun,” Swift, who has more than 87 million followers on Twitter, wrote on social media.
“Scooters team wanted me to sign an ironclad NDA stating I would never say another word about Scooter Braun unless it was positive, before we could even look at the financial records of BMLG (which is always the first step in a purchase of this nature.”
The news media CNN reached out to Braun’s representatives for comment. Since 2019, the two have gone back and forth on social media, with Braun even publicly pleading with Swift at one point to set aside their differences after he claimed he and his family was receiving anonymous death threats.
Swift wrote on Monday that she was never even given a chance to buy her masters back.
“I would have to sign a document that would silence me forever before I could even have a chance to bid on my own work. My legal team said that this is absolutely NOT normal, and they’ve never seen an NDA like this presented unless it was to silence an assault accuser by paying them off. He would never even quote my team a price. These master recordings were not for sale to me.”
She said that she was only made aware of Braun selling her masters after she received a letter from a private equity company, Shamrock Holdings, letting her know they had purchased her music, videos and album art.
“This was the second time my music had been sold without my knowledge.” Swift continued. “The letter told me that they wanted to reach out before the sale to let me know, but that Scooter Braun had required that they make no contact with me or my team, or the deal would be off.”
Swift also posted a photo of a letter she wrote to Shamrock Holdings. CNN has reached out to Shamrock Holdings.
Swift’s last two albums, “Lover” and “folklore” were released through Universal Music Group. She said in her message that she has also begun re-recording her old music which she called “exciting” and “creatively fulfilling.”
She ended her open letter writing, “I love you guys and I’m just gonna keep cruising, as they say.”
