Scooter Braun vs. Taylor Swift: Inside the $300M Music Feud with Corey O'Brien and Alex Falcone | 104

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Hi, besties.

You know, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but unfortunately today, I must tell you that this episode of The Big Flop will be our last.

I know.

Over the course of 100 episodes, we've cataloged the downfalls of restaurant chains, reality TV stars, department stores, and more Silicon Valley startups than I can count.

While endings are sad, I can sincerely say, on behalf of myself, my friends at Atwell Media and Wanderer, we've loved making this show for you.

Whether we've helped you dominate at your local pub trivia, given you some excellent fun facts to whip out at parties, or simply brightened your day with a laugh and a smile, we hope you've loved listening.

As I said recently on my page, every end is an opportunity for something new.

So I hope to see you wherever I end up next.

But for now, enjoy the last episode of The Big Flop.

Swifties, this one's for you.

But it's not just the sale that has her upset, it's the buyer, Scooter Braun, the high-profile manager behind artists like Justin Bieber and once Kanye West.

All the hate I got after that moment was not deserved.

We

are

on a same

game ship.

From Wondering and at Will Media, this is the Big Flop, where we chronicle the greatest flubs, fails, and blunders of all time.

I'm your host, Misha Brown, social media superstar who loves a bit of frat rap at your bestie Misha.

Now, on our show today, I am truly excited, everybody, because we have an amazing dancer, a content creator, and comedian.

You can see his show read on tour now.

It's Corey O'Brien.

Wow, thank you so much.

Great introduction.

Well, it's easy when we have really great people like you on the show.

I agree.

And of course, we are welcoming back a returning guest, a hilarious comedian.

It's Alex Falcone.

good to see you both sorry i don't dance

that's okay

we all do alex have you had any run-ins or heard anything about kayfed since we last spoke i have had uh sightings in the bushes i think he is stalking me

i think he's upset i i was like one of the few i was like mostly on his side i like came and went but you promised i didn't have to do any research and so today i have done that again and i was sure that this person was part of the bush administration and it seemed like no.

No, no, not quite.

Okay, that's a different scooter.

Okay, well, I can't wait to find out what's going on here.

Before we get into Scooter Braun, I am very excited to say that you two happen to be here on our 100th episode.

Yes,

and for this big episode, we have a story that involves one of the biggest celebrities of our time, truly.

So, never heard of him.

Not Scooter.

Yeah, I was like, oh, okay,

not Scooter.

So, here's a question: What's your relationship to Taylor Swift?

Are we Swifty's?

I used to date her.

Oh, okay.

Cool, cool, cool.

I have heard of her.

I wouldn't consider myself a Swifty, but I also don't want them to come and kill me.

So I will just say I love her.

And I think she's very talented and very unproblematic.

I will say a really, really good friend of mine was represented by Scooter for years and had a pretty public falling out with him.

So I'm excited to do this show on his behalf.

Okay, so just to be clear, we're pro Taylor, con scooter.

Yes.

I just want to make sure I'm on the right side of everything.

Big flop scooter brawn.

Great, great, great.

So yes, our story today is about Scooter Braun, a talent manager for some of the world's biggest pop stars.

So he got big by supporting young artists, but then he got in trouble with none other than Taylor Swift, taking major hits to his reputation.

So let's go back to the beginning, shall we?

Scott Braun is born in 1981 in New York City.

Tell me, scooter is not his real name.

That's ridiculous.

Wait, no, it is Scott.

Scooter is not his real name.

No, it's Scott.

Why would we call all Scotts Scooter?

Is that normal?

And why the fuck would anyone choose to call themselves Scooter?

Well, his friends and family started calling him Scooter when he was a little boy, at like around six or seven years old, and he was never able to like shake it off.

Oh,

are you going to do all Taylor puns?

Welcome to the show.

Did you have any nicknames growing up that you were just like, oh, I just want to get rid of this, but you couldn't?

Why would we bring that up now?

That's a trap.

That's a trap.

What about you, Misha?

My nickname growing up was Pachin.

My dad was in the military and I lived in Germany when I was an infant.

And they can't figure it out, but for some reason, I started calling myself Pachin.

Oh, so it was a self-applied nickname, but only when you were tiny.

Everyone in school just used to call me Homo.

That's all.

Endearingly, right?

I guess we could rewrite history.

So, I mean, his parents and four siblings, they moved to the very affluent town of Greenwich, Connecticut.

So he was pretty well off.

Braun, unlike us, was popular enough to become high school class president.

And he's talented enough at basketball that he ends up playing Division III at Emory College in Georgia.

And while there, he gets into selling fake IDs,

a little side hustle.

Now I kind of like him.

Sorry.

You're right.

He's an entrepreneur.

He's a businessman, right?

Yeah.

And he's got a lot of audacity, right?

One night, he just walks up to a nightclub and asks them how much they'd give him to bring people there.

And thus begins a brief but lucrative career as a club promoter.

Always the best people, club promoters.

They're always scammers.

Braun does such a great job at this that local legend and music producer Jermaine Dupree walks up to him at an event and offers Braun a job on the spot.

So

he also quits college on the spot and becomes head of marketing at SoSo Deaf Recordings.

What?

When he said he was going to fill the club, did he fill it with underage kids with fake IDs?

Probably.

That's not a bad business model.

Now I kind of like it.

And then he's like, I'm the head of marketing.

I can sell your CDs to a lot of kids who aren't old enough to buy them.

Yeah.

I mean, listen, born in 1981, this is the late 90s.

That's, come on, nobody cared yet.

So at only 20 years old, he's already in the industry's upper echelons, throwing parties for the likes of Britney Spears and the NBA.

I mean, he was moving so fast that just three years later, he breaks away from so-so-deaf to start his own company, SB Projects.

He scooted away from

so-so deaf.

Yeah, what do we think of Braun so far with that?

background knowledge.

He's an innovator.

Dave gives him a job on the spot is so cool that it's hard for me to stay.

Like the idea that somebody rolls up and like, you're so good at this.

Come work for, I don't know.

This is, it's like saying, like, give us the room.

It's like a cool thing that only happens in movies.

So good for him.

I also, I'm like, I'm not that surprised that a privileged man had things happen for him that were privileged.

Yeah.

So like,

well, he overcame all that money in Connecticut.

Yeah, he was already wealthy.

I was going to say, like, this, like doing this podcast, it has really made me think that I was doing life wrong for so many years, just trying to like work hard and like climb the rings because so many people just like, they start off as a janitor and then they're like COO of Coca-Cola or something, like massive jumps.

Oh, I thought the lesson was going to be start rich, do crimes.

Yeah.

No, it's start rich, get even richer, then do crimes, I think.

Yeah.

So SB Projects, it's a bit of an everything company.

It's involved with music, film, television, tech, even philanthropy.

Go bigger, go home, right?

Well, Braun almost has to go home.

After 11 months, he's running out of money and his small client roster still hasn't fully broken through.

He even calls his dad crying that he's made a terrible mistake.

And then a rapper named Asher Roth brings Braun a tract called I Love College.

Do you remember this song?

I don't know.

No?

Oh my God.

Okay, it's a popular song of people of a certain age.

So I Love College is exactly what it sounds like.

It's like a rap anthem about how dope being a little schoolboy is.

And as corny as it sounds, it hits number 12 on the Billboard top 100.

And it also launches a genre known as frat rap.

I have heard of frat rap.

Okay.

Thanks, scooter.

Most importantly, I Love College helps Braun and his company float during a critical time.

Here's a question.

If you could invent a genre of rap, what would it be?

I would do something like couch vibes, something like you just like listen to while you just don't do anything.

i like that oh very chill rap beats but i was thinking about this because i just went to go see the backstreet boys at the sphere and my favorite part was we were all of a certain age that we were sat like the whole concert oh i love that just sitting for a concert is so nice yes i know i know i was like this is dreams just like back pain vibes

back pain rap

I do think I want it to have the meanest sound, but only compliments.

So like the opposite of a diss track but you with the same attitude but it's like i really respect everything you're doing i think you put a lot of heart and soul into your music like that oh there people people will be into that it's like screamo um christian bands yeah exactly it just sounds so angry but you're like oh you're praising the lord that's

okay

so in 2007 when braun is only 25 he makes a big discovery on youtube He finds his golden goose, or should I say his Canadian goose?

Yes, this tiny magic boy is 13-year-old 13-year-old Justin Bieber, aka J Biebs, aka Biba baby.

And Braun is transfixed.

This kid's got everything, talent, soul, really long bangs.

And Braun figures out how to reach Bieber by googling the church featured in one of his singing videos.

And after he finds a number to call, he convinces Bieber and his mother to get on a plane, their very first plane ever, to meet him in Atlanta.

So then Braun orchestrates a deal for the kid with Usher, and the rest is Bieber Baby History.

So all three of us do social media stuff.

We're not as big as Bieber.

How do you feel about Bieber as like our patron saint, the first YouTube billionaire, essentially, music billionaire?

Like, do we, we have to respect him, right?

We're standing on his shoulders.

Yeah.

I actually don't hate it.

I think he's very talented.

And

I think that.

He's had so much attention on him at such a young age that it makes sense that he's experiencing up and downs in the public.

So I love him.

I think he's the same.

Very talented.

Nobody gets famous at 13 and turns out great.

No.

That's the thing.

I was like, it's just history repeating itself.

We've seen it over and over and over again.

So yeah, I have nothing bad to say about the Beats.

Great.

Honestly.

So with Justin Bieber's unfathomable success, SB Project explodes into a media and investment juggernaut, and Braun can now grow his roster.

And everyone agrees there's something special about about Braun's knack for picking out musical talent.

He signs Carly Ray Jepson after her hit Call Me Maybe and a young Ariana Grande.

So with Grande, Braun figures out how to guide her from Nickelodeon Kid Star to global singing sensation.

And Braun also becomes master of his own image, branding himself as a new kind of manager, a savvy, artistic-friendly mogul.

It's a good roster, though.

I gotta give him that.

It is a good roster.

In 2009, when Braun is only only 27, he's recognized as one of Billboard's 30 under 30, which is such a red flag when it comes to if you're going to be on this show.

So he picks up the phone and he calls as many other people on that list as possible to start building his network.

And besides discovering newish talent, Braun starts attracting already established stars.

He chugs along with the little manager who could, signing successful artist after successful artist, leading up to 2016 when he signs one of the biggest egos of all time

kanye west oh i thought you were gonna say maria carry he turned out great

yeah uh well okay now we alluded to this who would you say is kanye west's biggest enemy in the early 2000s taylor swift uh taylor right it is it is taylor swift that's the name i'm looking for today i got panicked when there was a quiz i'm sorry i should have been faster no i mean i was was right there with you.

I was like, either himself or Taylor Swift.

Yeah,

the argument could be made that he is his own biggest enemy, that's for sure.

So, do we remember when 19-year-old Taylor Swift won best female video at the MTV VMAs and then this happened?

Let's watch.

Thank you so much for giving me a chance to win a VMA award.

I'm gonna let you finish.

But Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time.

One of the best videos of all time.

And we still let him into music.

We were like, you can stick around for a while.

We still let him.

Yeah.

So.

Connie West's stunt sets off a feud that continues for years.

President Obama calls him a jackass.

You know what?

Fair.

Fair.

Lucky for Braun, Kanye actually apologizes many times, and Swift has to pretend she's cool with it also many times.

But they do seem to bury the hatchet, right?

And then almost a decade later, West releases a song called Famous, which kicks up all the dust again.

Do you remember why this song might be a little problematic?

Uh-huh.

He says, like, he's the reason that she's successful is because he ruined her speech.

He literally says, I made that bitch famous.

Yes.

Yes.

In the song West Raps, I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex.

Why I made that bitch famous?

Remember, all this is pre-Nazi.

Like, this is all like the stuff that we were okay with before he just went full Nazi.

Yeah, like people, people thought this was funny, which to me is just like insane.

I will say, if someone does make me famous, if you're listening to this, I will have sex with you.

But

I'm not going to deny that.

But I have to say, yeah, I think that when we like look, really look back at it now and watching all the things that Kanye has done, which people were okay with the fact that he was just bullying this woman for years

because they thought he was talented.

Well, to add salt to the wound, in the video for Famous, there is a very realistic wax figure of West in a giant bed surrounded by other figures of naked celebrities and politicians.

Braun might be a little relieved that he's not one of them, but lying right next to West, opposite his wife Kim Kardashian, is a sleeping simulacrum of Taylor Swift.

The figures end up displayed at an art gallery in LA and spark some interesting conversations.

Like a sidebar, the other figures in the bed are George W.

Bush, Donald Trump, Anna Wintor, Rihanna, Chris Brown, Ray J, Amber Rose, Caitlin Jenner, and Bill Cosby.

Okay, look, I've never done a group thing, but that sounds like maybe a lot of those people wouldn't be doing their fair share of the work.

That seems like a bad part.

The mix is off.

There's not enough fun people in there.

No, I've literally seen Ray J in action, and it was nothing special.

So I

so Time magazine calls the song one of the best of the year, and West ends up on their cover.

Swift then calls this revenge porn, right?

But here's where the story gets really murky: in response to Taylor's bashing of the song, Kim Kardashian, West's then-wife, leaks this video of West talking to Swift before he published his song.

Let's watch.

So it says,

To all my southside niggas that know me best, I feel like Taylor Swift might owe me sex.

That's not me.

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, this is the thing where I'm calling you because you got an army.

You own a country of motherfucking 2 billion people, basically.

That if you felt that it's funny and cool and like hip-hop and felt like, you know, just the college dropout and the artist like yay that you love, then I think that people would be like way into it.

What do we think?

Do you think Swift's misunderstood?

Look, man, there's so many times where somebody makes things awkward and then you don't say how you actually feel in the moment that if somebody later leaked a tape of me like politely dealing with a crazy person but like i think i think she's still being very reasonable here without saying yeah great idea like the man just referred to himself in the third person on the call like obviously you're not dealing with a normal ass person right now she's just like okay get this guy off the phone and then he's like great she said sure yeah she wasn't like fuck yeah kanye i love it yeah she was like

awkward laugh and then weird silence that's all she did that's not mean because she was like you're normally

mean so i'm kind of shocked and he doesn't say the next line which is worse and he doesn't say the next line and the crazy thing is it's all premeditated because why the fuck is kim recording it i think it's just it's it's wild to me but whatever yeah so in the longer version of the conversation West never mentions that he's going to be calling Swift the B-word, and he certainly doesn't mention the lifelike wax figure he's going to commission for the music video.

So Swift naturally takes to social media to post a scathing rebuke of both the music video and the song.

But what does this have to do with the actual main character of our story, Media Midas Scooter Braun?

Well, just a month following the release and subsequent success of Famous, Braun starts representing Kanye.

He came in after this.

He came in after this.

Already representing Miss Swift comes in after all of this.

This is an overall theme, and this is the issue when rich people get richer because he was fucking fine.

He had Taylor Swift.

Why did you have to bring in Kanye?

That's when it's just like probably 10% of Beaver set him for life.

They didn't need anybody.

So it's just like, it's never enough.

And that's when I'm just like, okay, you know what?

It all comes back to him selling fake IDs.

How could he?

We should have known that.

We should have known that.

I think that's the only redeemable thing about him, but yeah.

There's something about somebody going into like a Kinko's and being like, I need you to laminate all these.

Don't look at them.

That's so charming compared to this.

So up until this point, right, Swift has had no issue with Braun or his clients, even asking his protege, Justin Bieber, to open for her on tour.

But this unholy alliance puts Braun on Swift's poop list.

So now Braun and Swift are enemies.

And Braun, he doesn't even know it at this point.

Oh, wait, wait.

I just realized.

Is he the reason why there's Taylor's versions?

Was it she was fighting him?

We're not there yet, Alex.

I knew.

No, no, no.

I just needed to know.

I thought this guy did Afghanistan, remember?

This is I'm happy that I figured this out.

Yeah, yes.

I did look that up.

That was Scooter Libby I was thinking of from the Bush administration.

Different scooter.

Anyway, please.

Continue on.

No, no, Scooter Braun is worse.

So, Scooter Braun isn't the only one who takes side in this Yeezys versus Swift case.

Celebrities line up behind their favorite star.

Justin Bieber trolls Swift by posting a screen cap of himself, Braun, and West with the caption, Taylor Swift, what up?

Which feels trivial in this moment, but I promise it's important later.

Meanwhile, Braun adds projects and investments to his portfolio.

He's also becoming known as music's first responder for his philanthropic work raising money for like hurricane victims.

He does stuff to organize anti-gun violence protests.

Okay, but knowing him, he was probably like helping the hurricane victims, but also somehow helping the hurricanes.

He was playing both sides.

Yeah, he was like putting things in the sky to create hurricanes for sure.

So between his success as a manager and his own visibility, he's becoming a celebrity in his own right.

But Taylor Swift is becoming a music god.

Like her fandom is only rivaled by the likes of the Beatles, Beyonce, and BTS.

She's becoming rich beyond her wildest dreams, but she doesn't own her old music, not the master recordings to her first six albums, at least.

So that brings us to what you were talking about.

What do you know about music rights?

Oh, a lot.

I'm just choosing not to explain them.

Yeah,

I just choose not to.

Yeah, so the music industry is infamous for screwing over talent.

It's basically a core part of their business model.

So even though that seems like common knowledge, a lot of folks might be surprised to learn that musicians don't usually own their master recordings.

They have rights to their compositions or their lyrics, but not the thing people actually download and listen to.

You know, the thing they pay money for.

So.

Very famously, the Beatles struggled for years to buy back their catalog and still really haven't.

And Prince changed his freaking name just so he could own his future recordings.

So Swift claims that her first ever label, Big Machine, doesn't let let her buy them back.

Big Machine denies this, saying they gave her every opportunity to do so, but the Swifties line up behind their girl.

And in 2018, Swift finally leaves Big Machine for Universal Music Group, where she will own her masters for all future recordings.

And Big Machine goes up for sale almost immediately.

That's how powerful she is.

In June of 2019, Scooter Braun snaps up Big Machine for around $300 million.

Have they broken up at this point?

Sorry, when he's buying out her catalog,

she's already left for Universal, but has she left him?

No.

Her manager bought her recordings from under her?

Yeah.

Why is he fucking obsessed with her?

I think it's the weirdest thing.

I'm also just like, you're a grown-ass man.

Are you a 12-year-old girl or 12-year-old gay man?

Why do you need to own?

Are you a Swifty?

Like, this is,

it's bizarre to me.

And I remember watching this play out and I just felt like there's a weird vendetta against this woman and they just won't leave her the fuck alone.

I mean, this is worst case scenario for her.

She doesn't own her music and it's owned by someone who's like

has ties to her enemy, Kanye West.

Like

however, at this time, Braun has no idea that she feels this way, that she feels slighted.

So, I mean, he's young, he's successful, he's pretty arrogant, and just looking to make a good business deal.

So he's only had pleasant interactions with Swift herself so far.

And once the ink is dry on the contract, Braun assumes Swift and he can work together.

Oh, sweet Summer Child.

Big Machine claims Swift knew about the deal before it went public, that the owner, Scott Borchetta, texted her the night before.

Wait, Scoot Bochetta?

Sorry, he's a Scott also, so we could call him Scoot as well.

We'll call him Scooter Borchetta, yeah.

Whatever the case, Swift acts outraged and shocked, saying she found out the same time everybody else did.

She also writes a super lengthy Tumblr post about the business deal and includes a photo of Braun with Bieber and West, the one that Bieber used to troll Swift a couple of years earlier.

And she writes in the Tumblr post, essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.

Anytime Scott Borchetta has heard the words, scooter brawn, escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to.

He knew what he was doing.

They both did.

Controlling a woman who didn't want to be associated with them in perpetuity.

See, I've never been one to blame women.

So I...

I've never heard it for sure.

Never, never.

So I have to say I stand with her.

And truthfully, whether what she's saying is true or not, it's her music.

That's really what it comes down to.

So I'm just like, I don't, I don't really feel like there's a fight there.

And if you brought her in as an artist because you wanted to cultivate her as an artist, as a woman, and also really help her in her career, I feel like you should be doing so.

Instead, all of his actions were proving that he wasn't.

I agree with everything Corey said.

And also, I just want to add that Scott Borchetta sounds like a sandwich.

A tasty.

Honestly, when you guys started saying that, I was like, fuck, I'm hungry.

Like, I'm so hungry.

Yeah.

So, once again, Swift is party to a big old feud with a rich and powerful person.

But Braun isn't like West or even Bieber.

He doesn't have a fan base or an army to defend him.

Plus, he's in shock.

But he can have his clients and colleagues step in.

And they do.

Demi Lovato calls Braun a good man.

Bieber, of course, backs Braun and takes responsibility for the FaceTime screenshot, apologizing for his distasteful and insensitive joke at Swift's expense.

But he then goes further and accuses Swift of bullying Braun.

We shouldn't have taught conservatives the word bullying because they're using it wrong.

You can't bully someone with $300 million who bought your cup.

That's not what bullying means.

You can't bully the biggest bullies.

I'm just like, enough.

Yeah.

Well, it wasn't just Biebs.

Braun's wife, another civilian, she also takes to social media.

Her post even weirdly sounds like a diss track.

To Swift, she writes, girl, who are you to talk about bullying?

The world has watched you collect and drop friends like wilted flowers.

Girl, spend his money and shut up.

No, shut up.

Go back to being a civilian.

Yes.

But are any of these arguments enough to shield Braun from Swift's hordes?

Not to mention her other famous friends, Halsey, Iggy Azalea, Todrick Hall, Selena Gomez, they all line up behind Swift.

Swift's personal battle has become a referendum on music ownership throughout the industry.

Now, soon after the Tumblr post Heard Round the World, Swift's seventh studio album, Lover, premieres, and even scooter Braun has to admit that it's a good one, publicly calling it a brilliant album.

So while promoting Lover, Swift drops a bombshell announcement.

She says she could re-record every single one of her old songs once a certain clause in her contract expires.

Meaning, if fans want to buy her music without enriching her enemies, they can just purchase Taylor's version at some point in the future.

If she does this, she won't need her old catalog.

Bronze Horde would become essentially worthless.

Besides Taylor, who do you think should re-record their albums decades after the originals?

Well, I've always wanted to release a comedy album called My Name of My Album Taylor's Version and then just send her some of the money from it.

I would say, well, I don't know.

I I don't know the legal things behind Brittany's albums, but I just want all of the money that she has ever made to only go to her.

So I'm just like, if that has to be re-recorded, if that has to be getting rid of her family and sending them to an island, I'm like, I just want Brittany to get all of the money that she deserves and she worked for.

So I would say.

That's a good one.

That's a good one.

We like that.

So ahead of the 2019 American Music Awards in the fall, where Taylor Swift is going to receive the Artist of the Decade Award, she declares on social media that she won't be allowed to sing her past hits because the scooters, Braun and Barchetta, won't let her.

She also says she's not allowed to use her past music in a Netflix documentary about her own life because they won't let her.

However, Big Machine fires back with a blog post saying this isn't true.

Lisa, you just have to know you do outrage better than anybody.

That's the best.

Gasp.

What a delay.

So after the AMAs, Braun releases a statement asking Swift to mitigate her language around the drama.

Wait, wait, wait.

So you're not going to let her use her own music and then you're going to try to tell her, like, control her language?

Kick rocks.

He says he and his family have been receiving death threats as a result of Swift's stunts.

He also says he's been trying to reach Swift to talk through all this, but has been ignored.

Sounds like bullying to me.

That's why, yeah, we should take away all the rights of straight men.

Because I just feel like the audacity is insane.

How are you going to do that to her and then just be like, hey, I've been trying to reach out to you and I haven't heard back, so I'm the victim.

Leave us like two or three rights, but you can have most of them.

Just give me like a couple.

Yeah,

you know, it's nice to drive.

We're allowing you to have to have a podcast, Mike.

That's it.

That's the first one you should take away.

I know.

So I'm like, so I'm like,

calm down.

Don't push your luck.

So in December, at the Billboards Women in Music event, she gives a 15-minute speech to further her cause.

She calls out the double standards for women in the music business, which of course can be applied to any industry.

And she name-checks Scooter Braun and all of the investors responsible for buying her life's work.

Let's watch a snippet of her speech together.

Scooter never contacted me or my team to discuss it prior to the sale or even when it was announced.

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.

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.

I will say, I have not listened to a ton of her music, but I would listen to her talk about private equity for hours.

That was excellent.

Yeah, I have to say, she's probably the only person I want to hear talk about that.

And also, I'm just like, you go, bitch.

Like, I love the confidence that she has behind this issue when someone is actively trying to work against her while saying that they are working with her.

In April of the following year, at the start of lockdown, Big Machine and Braun release a Taylor Swift live album from a 2008 concert, which immediately gets her hackles up.

She trolls Braun and company for making a bad business deal and having to scramble to claw back some money with this slapped together live album.

She makes a point to call out their shameless greed, but like Braun is getting death threats.

So maybe chill.

You be as mad at him as possible.

But if you're a fan of a musician, don't death threat people on their behalf.

That seems easy.

We could, this is not, it's not your fault that people are calling death threats in this case.

Yeah, I'm like, there's so many things that we can talk about and attack this man for besides saying, like, hey, die.

Like, we don't.

Because honestly, we don't want him to die.

We should hold him accountable.

If he dies, then he can't be held accountable.

Yeah, we want him to lose the money.

Now, behind the scenes, over the next few months taylor swift says braun offers to sell her her master recordings but the catch is she claims she's being asked to sign an nda and stop saying bad things about him in the public before they go into negotiations before they negotiate that's not part of the deal that's part of to get to the table to give him money yeah

bro cannot handle getting his feelings hurt

This was like a big moment.

He was getting dragged.

As he should.

I don't understand.

I think when people are being held accountable, then they turn around and say, why are you holding me accountable?

I'm like, what's not clicking?

It's not standing on business that I'm standing on business.

You know, there's been some articles saying that allegedly cheating.

Oh, you know, there's been some articles saying that allegedly cheating CEO is thinking about suing Coldplay?

Yeah.

And they're like, what the fuck?

We were just singing about the stars.

Look at this.

He's like, I would like to cheat in private, please.

In public.

In front of hundreds of thousands.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah.

Well, Swift doesn't budge.

There is no guarantee that Braun will sell her the masters after she signs the NDA.

Braun refutes this, but from here on out, Braun has all but lost control of this entire situation.

So months go by, and in November of 2020, Braun finds himself a buyer.

And no, it was not Taylor Swift.

It's another private equity firm called Shamrock Holdings, owned by the Disney family.

Now, even though Braun bought Big Machine for around $300 million,

he's able to sell just Swift's albums to Shamrock for that amount, leaving the rest of Big Machine's catalog in place.

I'm so sorry if you were mean to you on the internet and you made a half a billion dollars.

Right.

He also arranges a nice profit-sharing deal with Shamrock for Swift's masters.

So he'll continue to make money off of that.

So long story short, he's making millions of dollars while wiping his hands clean of Swift and all of that drama.

So a quick question, has your opinion of Braun changed at all since we started that?

I've been like, honestly, just like getting more and more angry.

And just like, I, I...

am so disappointed in myself that I wasn't one of the people that was attacking him on social media.

Yeah.

I'm like, I didn't even send him one deadline.

No, I'm just like,

I wish I knew this was happening.

I would have been, I would have had no free time because I was just messaging him.

I would say mine has been a pretty steady line of low.

Since you told me his name was Scooter, I've maintained a low, except for a very brief blip where he sold fake IDs.

Yeah, that was it.

Everything else is a line.

So little does Braun know that his pain is just the beginning.

Like a mama bear, Swift will not rest until she's retrieved her precious song babies, and she's willing to rip apart anyone who stands in her way.

So Swift is definitely re-recording her albums.

November just so happens to be when she can legally start recording her music and Swift moves swiftly.

Hashtag TaylorIsFree starts trending.

And around this time, all the bad blood starts affecting Braun's personal life.

He and his wife, with whom he shares three children, they start drifting apart.

And as they contemplate divorce, Braun falls into a deep depression.

His friends try to convince him to try an intense week-long therapy program.

From how Braun describes the event, he basically experiences a sort of ego death.

And from that point on, everything seems clearer.

Look,

I wouldn't want to send him a death threat, but a divorce threat seems great.

I'm happy with that.

I hope people don't want to hang out with you.

You seem like you are not fun to hang out with.

And I want him to prove the ego death, and I want him to send me $2 million.

I believe that.

Yeah, yeah.

Send Corey $2 million.

I believe you.

Show to me that you have changed, and I will still think you're shit, but thank you.

That's the only way.

Corey gets $2 million.

I know.

This just reads like, I went and did ayahuasca in Peru.

And all of a sudden, then changed.

I don't know.

I bet the week long was just somebody going, you still have so much money.

Yeah.

Just smile.

The week long is him just in Puerto Rico doing Coke.

Coke and he's like, this has been a blast.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The following spring, Swift releases her first re-recorded album, Fearless, Taylor's version.

Of course, it debuts at number one.

It's the only re-recorded album in music history to reach that level.

So Swift is rolling in dough, but honestly, so is Braun.

In a deal even he's surprised by, Braun's company merges with Hybe, the South Korean entertainment company behind BTS.

Yes, Yes, that BTS.

So not only is Hyb buying up Braun's company for over $1 billion, of which he'll keep 400 million of, they're also going to install him as the CEO of HybE America.

So he's winning, everybody.

To celebrate the deal, Braun gets himself a splashy feature in Variety Mag, where he opens up about a lot of stuff, good and bad.

About Swift, he says, quote, all of what happened has been very confusing and not based on anything factual.

I don't know what story she was told.

I asked for her to sit down with me several times, but she refused.

I offered to sell her the catalog back and went under NDA, but her team refused.

It all seems very unfortunate.

I just want to know when you said that BTS, what other BTS were we thinking of?

Thank you.

Sorry, if I'm distracting from the actual issues, because I don't want to be mad at Scooter anymore.

Yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of him.

So thank you so much for introducing him into my life because I didn't know much about him and now I think I might relapse.

Him too.

Him too because he cannot take being called a bully by Swift's fans.

So Swift, meanwhile, continues to release music, both old and new.

For her 10th studio album, Midnights, she drops a single called Karma, which fans immediately decode as a diss track seemingly aimed at Braun.

the song becomes a prophetic anthem because less than a year later, his A-list clients start to leave.

Sure, some of the reason his clients leave is linked to the terrible PR feud between Braun and Swift, but others claim it's just time for a new chapter.

According to sources in publications like Vulture, there is a sense that major clients like Ariana Grande have simply outgrown Braun.

I mean, as a CEO of a major company, he's no longer the hands-on manager his clients once relied on.

So he can't pivot quickly enough for their needs.

There's nothing like leaving him doesn't hurt him enough.

I don't know.

He feels like he's gotten, he's got too big of a moat.

You can't actually

insulting him is the only thing that really does seem to bother him.

So as long as when you leave, you're like, this guy sucks, then that's fine.

Yeah, I mean, he's like working less, but still making the same amount of money.

So I'm just like,

okay, he's winning.

He's actually winning.

Once his biggest client and friend, probably Ariana Grande, because Braun refers to her as she, decides to leave, Braun takes it as a sign.

He admits to himself that he's been wanting to try something else for a while.

And on June 17th, 2024, Braun makes it official.

He's retiring from managing artists.

He frames the decision as a personal choice to be, quote, father first, a CEO second, and a manager no more.

He adds, I came to the realization that my kids were three superstars I wasn't willing to lose.

Oh, yeah, they were definitely going to switch over find someone else.

Also, I like the idea of his wife going and making three new kids and calling them like the kids' names Taylor's version.

Is that how kids work?

You could just do that, right?

I think

yeah, you can do whatever you want.

So, I mean, his exit isn't a departure from the industry.

It's really just a pivot.

Reflecting on his journey, he quotes Barry Gordy, founder of Motown Records, who told him, quote, it will never end the way you want it to, but it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Barry's like, why the fuck am I dragged into this?

He's like, you fucked over Taylor Swift.

I didn't.

Leave me the fuck out of this.

Leave me out.

I don't know enough about Motown, but I know if you own a record label, you've screwed some people over.

Yeah, but Taylor Swift?

Yeah, no, no.

I mean, he's like, I don't need the Swifties to try to come at like, well, is this man still alive?

I don't imagine so.

Okay, well, still, even if the man's dead, the Swifties will be like, die, die, die, die.

They sure would.

Braun also sits down for a two-hour long conversation with Stephen Bartlett for the podcast, The Diary of a CEO.

Here's a quick clip.

The biggest lesson I learned from all of it

is that at one point in my life, I received so much praise.

And then the next moment,

without me expecting it, I received so much hate.

And

on the other side of all these experiences, I've I've come to learn that both were not deserved.

The people who were praising me did not know me.

Okay, first of all, he looks so much like a scooter.

I didn't know what he looked like.

We've absolutely.

And then the second of all, Barry Gordy is still alive.

I'm sorry that he got dragged into this.

Okay.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for telling me that because I was worried.

I actually forgot about Barry already.

I'm not going to lie.

Also, scooter.

I'm like, show me your bank account right now.

Yeah.

Show me.

Send Corey $2 million if you really believe this.

Because

that drama sitting there.

Oh, I didn't deserve it.

You guys didn't know me.

I don't want to fucking know you.

From the little I do know about you, you suck.

So I'm like,

it's very much this victim mentality.

And I still can't get into it when he was perpetuating so much of the drama that was in his life.

So yeah, I think he's right that he did not deserve his success.

And I think he's wrong that he didn't deserve the hate.

So I was 50-50 on that quote.

Glacked it.

So let's do a little, where are they now?

Taylor Swift released four Taylor's version album re-records, all of which climbed to the top of the charts.

In May of 2025, after six years of feuding with Braun, Taylor Swift finally took ownership of her master recordings from Shamrock Holdings, who sold her the catalog for close to what they paid.

Swift said she was so happy, her first tattoo might be a shamrock right in the middle of her forehead.

in a statement braun said he was quote happy for her

um

i

want to say that i think there is a not there is a small chance that this was just that the business deal didn't work out and she decided to bury him and make a ton of money by making all of her old art albums chart again by re-releasing them and if that is the case i still think that's fine If this was just her also just out-mogling him, that's still great.

And if you like, if you make your living being like taking credit for other artists and then fighting them in court, I have no, I don't care.

He got out-mogled, even better.

Good for her.

Yeah.

I mean, it wasn't like she was trying to buy up somebody else's shit.

She was trying to buy up her own stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

She wasn't trying to get Cold Clay's records.

Absolutely.

As for Braun, his stated goal of being CEO second sort of fell apart, but he's recently become very Zen.

He believes in reincarnation and surrendering to life's chaos.

In July of 2025, he amicably stepped down as CEO of HIBE and moved into a consulting role there.

Plus, he's still a huge stakeholder in the company.

So yay.

He says he left the job to pursue some other projects he has yet to announce publicly, but it's probably AI.

Nope.

Not joking.

He's really into AI.

I could tell that from the look at his face, you didn't have to tell me that.

He had an eyeliner AI face.

AI or crypto.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, both, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, yeah.

So, here on the big flop, we try to be positive people and end on a high.

So, are there any silver linings you can think of that came about from Scooter Braun's fall from Grace?

Well, I think I'm just glad that all of his drama ended with Corey getting $2 million.

Yes, I have to say, I agree with that.

I'm so happy I have money now thanks to Scooter.

And I'm happy Taylor has her music back.

And I'm happy that Scooter can't take advantage of artists anymore so I yeah I think it's a it's a win-win you did say that he found what he's into like wellness now or something Zen and AI reincarnation oh and reincarnation so he's part of a cult now

probably

so I I'm happy that maybe he we won't have to hear from him there we go Well, now that you both know about this failure of reputation, would you consider this a baby flop, a big flop, or a mega flop?

I don't know.

He seems like someone that makes, it would, it would actually make him happy to hear me say mega flop when it comes to him.

So I'm going to have to say a baby flop because there's nothing mega about him.

Yeah, I unfortunately think that he is doing fine.

And I think that makes it hard to declare him a full-on flop.

I think.

The fact that he's unhappy makes me feel a little better about it, but he has so much money and keeps getting to do what he wants that I think he did not entirely flop.

But I agree that calling him a baby flop would probably hurt his feelings.

So let's go with that.

Also, Scooter is a baby's name.

Grow up.

And let's be so real.

Who isn't unhappy?

We're all unhappy a little bit.

So I'm like, I don't even fucking feel bad for you.

I have to take my Prozac.

I hope he's right about reincarnation because I do think he's going to be something worse next.

Yes.

I think he's going to be something like just permanently uncomfortable.

He's going to be, I hope he's a fish or something.

He's just going to come back as as Taylor's version.

That's literally what it's just going to be.

He's just going to pop out and have to live with that.

Taylor's version.

Yeah.

Well, thank you so much to our chart-topping guests, Alex Falcone and Corey O'Brien for joining us here on The Big Flop on our 100th episode.

Congratulations.

Woo!

And of course, thanks to all of you for listening and watching 100 amazing episodes of The Big Flop.

As I said before, everyone who touches this show has had an absolute ball making it for you, and we can't thank you enough for tuning in.

This is your bestie, Misha, signing off.

Bye.

Bye.

The Big Flop is a production of Wondering and At-Will Media, hosted by Misha Brown, produced by Sequoia Thomas, Harry Huggins, and Tina Turner.

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