Scooter Braun rose to fame as the prominent manager of Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande and other superstars — and his star client is now defending him to Taylor Swift after news of a lucrative business deal involving the ownership of her six-album catalog broke.
Earlier today (June 30), it was announced that Braun had agreed to acquire Scott Borchetta’s Big Machine Label Group; the acquisition includes Swift’s Big Machine catalog, and Swift wrote a passionate, barbed statement about the development shortly after the arrangement went public.
She listed off her multiple issues with Braun and referred to “the incessant, manipulative bullying” she was subject to by Braun’s clients — namely Kanye West, who “organized a revenge porn music video which strips [her] body naked,” (the video in question being the visual for his 2016 single, “Famous”), and Bieber, who made light of the tense dynamic between Swift and West on Instagram, which she referenced in her post.
Bieber eventually responded to Swift’s comments with an explanation of his own — which began with an apology.
“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 wrote in the caption of a throwback photo of the two pop stars. He took full responsibility for the post of him with Braun and West, and stressed that Braun “didnt have anything to do with it and it wasnt even a part of the conversation in all actuality he was the person who told me not to joke like that.”
He then proceeded to continue to defend Braun, and accused her of bullying: “As the years have passed we haven’t crossed paths and gotten to communicate our differences, hurts or frustrations. 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.”
Several spoke out in support of Swift, including Halsey, who wrote that she is “standing with her.”
Read Bieber’s post in full below.
