Scott Borchetta and Taylor Swift
Larry Busacca/Getty Images for NARASScott Borchetta takes a trip down memory lane while remembering to cross paths with Taylor Swift.
“It was 20 years ago today … the Beatles reference may not be too far off the mark … 😊,” Borchetta, 62, wrote on Instagram on Saturday, November 2. “Today marks the 20th anniversary of my meeting. First time with Taylor. The day that changed both of our lives.”
Alongside the message, the Big Machine Label Group CEO uploaded a photo of Swift, now 34, sitting in front of a microphone inside a packed room.
“This photo was taken two nights later at the Bluebird Cafe,” his caption said. “You see the back of my head, bottom left, T, and then Andrea across the room…”
The bad blood between Taylor Swift and Scooter Braun has inspired lyrics, forced celebrities to take sides and angered Swifties. The drama reached a climax in June 2019 when it was announced that Braun's media company, Ithaca Holdings, had acquired Scott Borchetta's Big Machine Label Group for $300 million. By using […]
Borchetta concluded, “He's always proud of the art and the work we've done together… and I'm proud of him now. Keep crushing… xx. “…
Borchetta and Swift's history goes back years. After the The Eras Tour The singer announced via Instagram in November 2018 that he had found a “new home” at Republic Records, and thanked Borchetta. “I'm so happy,” he wrote. “I can't wait to show you what I do next.”
As part of the agreement, Braun scooter acquired Big Machine and Swift's back catalog of master recordings. Swift took to Tumblr in 2019 to call out Braun, 43, and Borchetta.
“I never dreamed so bad that the buyer would be a Scooter. “Whenever Scott Borchetta heard the words 'Scooter Braun' escape my lips, it was when I cried or tried not to,” he wrote. “He knew what he was doing; they both do. To control a woman who did not want to associate with them. Forever. That means eternity.”
Borchetta fired after a June 2019 post on the label's website titled “So, It's Time for Some Truth.” In the upload, he said he “sent Taylor personally … to brief him before the story [of Braun’s acquisition] to break … to hear from me directly. “… He pointed out that Swift “had every opportunity in the world to not only have videos, photos, everything related to her work,” but she “chose to leave” the Big Machine.
Taylor Swift's team responded to the Discovery+ docs Taylor Swift vs. “None of these men will be able to rob Taylor of being a singer, a singer, a director, a fighter for the rights of musicians and fighting for the rights of artists,” the statement said. […]
Swift's lawyer Donald Passman denied in a July 2019 statement that Brochetta had offered him “an opportunity to buy his masters, or the label, with a check.”
The following month, Swift announced her plans to re-record her discography and release it as “Taylor's Version.” (He just went down Fear not, Red, Speak Now again 1989. Swift is yet to be reissued Reputation and his first game.)
Swift went on to say that Borchetta and Braun denied her the right to perform her old tracks at the 2019 American Music Awards and use her songs in her Netflix documentary, Miss America. Big Machine dismissed the allegations.
The following year, Borchetta seemed motivated to put it back together. When asked if she was “still moving on” with Swift, she told Billboard in 2020, “Yeah. I mean, I'm always rooting for her. She's brilliant and we've had history.”
