Scooter Braun Tries to Pull an ‘I Don’t Know Her’ on Taylor Swift

If you’re even remotely aware of Taylor Swift (and if you aren’t, please comment and explain how), you know that she’s been re-recording her albums for the past few years, due to a dispute with her former record label, Big Machine, which was bought by Scooter Braun in June 2019. 

Braun made a ton of money in the 2010s music industry by launching Justin Bieber’s career, and managing Kanye West (who now goes by Ye)—including in June 2016, when West released a music video for the song “Famous,” featuring a wax figure portraying a naked Swift. The song includes the lyrics, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex. Why? I made that bitch famous.” (And look, I know it’s been 10 years, but dear god, that was fucked up.) Swift has alleged that Braun had a hand in Kim Kardashian (West’s wife at the time) illegally recording a phone call in which Swift appears to consent to the song’s lyrics. Nearly four years later, the full phone call leaked, revealing that Kardashian’s version had been doctored and Swift did not, in fact, consent to the misogynistic lyrics. But by many metrics, the damage was already done; Swift became a cultural villain for years (but also made a great album about it, and a lot of money). 

Anyway, I give you that little précis, because this week Braun gave a 90-minute podcast interview to the Free Press’s Suzy Weiss (sister of Bari Weiss), in which he acts as if Swift’s anger at him buying the company that owned the masters of her first six albums came out of nowhere. (Just as an aside, because it’s the Free Press, he also said the most conservative-coded thing possible: “I never tell people who I vote for. I’m a moderate, so I kind of vote both ways.”)

When Weiss asked about the Swift drama (and fair enough for doing so; Braun never gives interviews so you’ve gotta get a lot out of him while you can), he accused her of overreacting: “I don’t know Taylor Swift. I think I’ve met her in my life three times. I have never had a substantial conversation with her in my life.” 

He says, before he bought Big Machine—“two years earlier or three years earlier”—she invited him to a party, and then they never spoke again. This honestly sounds like classic Taylor—trying to suss out the man who encouraged one of the worst moments of her life, and then ignoring him. 

But also, Braun played a role (possibly inadvertently, even!) in foiling Swift’s business and artistic goals. When the sale was announced, she wrote on Tumblr, “For years I asked, 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.” Instead of selling them to Swift, Big Machine sold her records to Braun. In the same post, she wrote, “my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.” And given the hit her reputation took (no pun intended), I don’t think that’s exaggerating the “Famous” debacle all that much. 

Braun sticking to the facts that make him look good here (that he and Swift have had very minimal IRL interaction) is a smart media move—and lord knows the man is great at media relations. But when he says, “I will never truly understand that situation,” I think the proper response is “try a little bit harder. 

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