In 2019, music executive Scooter Braun purchased the master rights to Taylor Swift’s early albums after he acquired her former label, Big Machine Label Group. The move, which Swift called her “worst case scenario,” has led the pop star to re-record her music. Now, Braun has shared his perspective on the acquisition in a new interview with NPR. In an episode of the podcast The Limits With Jay Williams, Braun explained his “regrets” about how the situation was handled. Find the episode below.
When asked if he would have handled things with Swift differently, Braun responded, “Yes, I would have. I learned an important lesson from that.” He went on to explain, “I think that when you have a conflict with someone, it’s very hard to resolve it if you’re not willing to have a conversation. So the regret I have there is that I made the assumption that everyone, once the deal was done, was going to have a conversation with me, see my intent, see my character, and say, great, let’s be in business together. And I made that assumption with people that I didn’t know.”
Braun continued:
Last year, Hybe—the South Korean entertainment conglomerate formerly known as Big Hit Entertainment—acquired Braun’s Ithaca Holdings, including companies such as SB Projects and Big Machine Label Group, in a deal worth over $1 billion.
Taylor Swift will release her new album, Midnights, on October 21. She reportedly turned down an offer to perform at the Apple Music Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show in order to focus on re-recording her music. So far, Swift has shared Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version).