Scooter Braun is offering new insight into his career after becoming one of the most controversial names in the music industry in recent years.
Braun, 43, appeared as a guest on “The Diary of a CEO” podcast and spoke candidly about discovering (and later parting ways with) Justin Bieber, plus, of course, the Taylor Swift of it all.
When it comes to his longtime feud with Swift, 35, which was brought up “this whole Taylor Swift incident,” during the Monday, June 9, episode, it seems Braun has jokes.
“What happened?” Braun responded to host Steven Bartlett with a smirk. (Braun and Swift had a public falling out in 2019 after he bought Big Machine Records from Scott Borchetta, which included her musical masters. Swift bought back her catalog of songs earlier this year.)
Scooter Braun and Taylor Swift Getty Images (2)
“I thought I was going to work with all the artists on Big Machine. I thought it was gonna be an exciting thing. I knew that Taylor — she and I had only met three times, I think in my life, three or four times — one of the times, it was years earlier, it was really a great engagement,” he claimed. “In between that time since I’d seen her last, I started managing Kanye West. I managed Justin Bieber. I knew she didn’t get along with them. I had a feeling, this is where my arrogance came in. I had a feeling she probably didn’t like me because I managed them. But I thought that once this announcement happened, she would talk to me, see who I am, and we would work together.”
The bad blood between Taylor Swift and Scooter Braun has inspired song lyrics, forced celebrities to take sides and incurred the wrath of Swifties. The drama came to a head 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. Through […]
For those familiar with the lore, this is not what happened. Keep scrolling for the biggest podcast revelations:
The Taylor Swift of It All
Taylor Swift Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for YouTube Originals
Braun claimed that he asked Borchetta for Swift’s phone number following the Big Machine deal. While he was calling artists on the label, Swift dropped her open letter on Tumblr regarding the Big Machine sale.
“I was just shocked,” Braun stated. “I don’t need to go back into it, but what I can tell you is everything in life is a gift. Having that experience allows me to have empathy for the people I worked with who I would always say, ‘Yeah, I understand.’ But I never knew what it was like to be on the global stage like that. I never knew what criticism like that felt like.”
Braun revealed the “biggest gift” he got from the very public situation.
“All the praise I had received up until that moment was not deserved. All the hate I got after that moment was not deserved, because none of these people knew me,” he said. “The gift of pain was awareness.”
Braun made it clear that he does not “hold any hatred” over the situation.
“Everyone moves on,” he said. “I choose to see it as a gift. I choose to see it as being able to have a perspective that very few people in the world have of knowing what that’s like. Of feeling that on a global level.”
Going Through His Divorce
Yael Cohen and Scooter Braun Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
While Braun was dealing with the public fallout of his feud with Swift, the music mogul was also in the middle of a split from ex-wife Yael Cohen, with whom he shares three kids. (Their separation was announced in 2021, and the divorce was finalized the following year.)
“I’m grateful for a couple things. One, my kids were really young when it happened, so they didn’t feel it as much,” Braun said of navigating the Swift debacle. “It was very hard at the time. It was hard on the marriage. It was hard on our family.”
Elsewhere in the podcast episode, Braun spoke candidly about his divorce.
“October of 2020, my marriage was falling apart. The whole world thought I was crushing it,” Braun recalled. “I had a suicidal thought for 20 minutes where I was like, ‘If my marriage is gonna fall apart, I’m not gonna be with my kids all the time. I can’t control this. I’m not gonna be this perfect image that I’ve presented to the world. If I can’t be this perfect image, I don’t want to be here.’ It went to a very dark place, and after 20 minutes I said, ‘What the hell was that?’ That’s not me, I would never leave my kids.”
What Happened With Yael
Braun not being “happy” with who he was affected his marriage.
“I think I was happy because everyone in the world told me I was doing great and I thought that that was enough,” he said. “I feel like I was asleep at the wheel. I feel like I didn’t know myself at the time and, but I had so much success at such a young age. Everyone was telling me I was doing great. So I just chose to believe them. It wasn’t until the foundation broke and there was nothing underneath it that I was like, oh s***, I’m actually not happy.”
As for his relationship with Cohen now, Braun said they “were made to be amazing coparents” to their three kids.
Justin Bieber has moved on from longtime manager Scooter Braun, but that doesn’t mean that the two are on sour terms. “There’s no bad blood,” a source says in the new issue of Us Weekly. “Scooter created Justin for who he is. It’s just a time and place to move on.” For years, Braun has […]
“We were made to come into each other’s lives, to help each other be better in different ways,” he said. “Through the heartbreak of our relationship ending, we were brought together to make three incredible souls. Now, whoever gets me next is in for a treat.”
His Longtime Relationship With Justin Bieber — And Where It Stands Now
Scooter Braun and Justin Bieber Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for YouTube Originals
Braun said he had a “clear vision” of Bieber’ success after watching the singer’s cover videos on YouTube. “No one believed me,” Braun recalled, noting that Biebers’ “tone” and “charisma” are what allowed for the story to unfold.
“They put it on the line for me too. They believed in a 25-year-old kid,” Braun said of Bieber and his family. “We were able to achieve some amazing things and I’m very proud of what we achieved and always rooting for him.”
Braun admitted that his relationship with Bieber is “not the same that it was” when they worked together. (Braun and Bieber parted ways professionally in 2023.)
“I think there comes a point where, I understand, he probably wants to go on and show that he can do it. We worked together for so long and we had such extreme success,” Braun explained. “I think you get to a point as a man where you want to show the world, you can do it on your own. I completely respect that. I think at this point that’s what he’s doing.”
Parting Ways With Justin Bieber
Justin Bieber Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images
Us Weekly confirmed that Bieber officially let go of Braun as his manager in August 2023.
“At that point it had been a couple years where I knew I wanted to do something else, and I wanted to find out who I was,” he said. “I wanted to experiment with, you know, a different career and we were both communicating enough with each other. The writing was on the wall.”
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