LOS ANGELES (CelebrityAccess) – Scooter Braun has finally broken his silence about the very public ongoing dispute between Taylor Swift and his recently acquired label Big Machine Label Group.
On Thursday, Braun spoke about the matter during a live Q&A at The Hollywood Chamber’s 2019 State of the Entertainment Industry Conference. The interview was conducted by Variety’s Shirley Halperin and was the headline event of the conference.
“I haven’t talked about this in six months. Not once. I haven’t made a statement about it,” said Braun. “When there’s a lot of things being said and a lot of different opinions, yet the principals haven’t had a chance to speak to each other, there’s a lot of confusion. I’m not going to go into details here, because it’s just not my style. I just think we live in a time of toxic division, and of people thinking that social media is the appropriate place to air out on each other and not have conversations. And I don’t like politicians doing it. I don’t like anybody doing it, and if that means that I’ve got to be the bad guy longer, I’ll be the bad guy longer, but I’m not going to participate.”
The saga began back in July when Braun’s company Ithaca Holdings purchased Big Machine Label Group along with Swift’s early musical catalog in a deal worth roughly $300 million, according to Billboard.
In a lengthy Tumblr post published after news of the sale became public, Swift called the deal her “worst case scenario,” and accused Braun of “incessant, manipulative bullying.” Then last week, Swift again took to social media to air out some grievances, this time accusing Braun and her former record label of preventing her from performing her early works during her upcoming performance at the American Music Awards on Sunday. That matter has since been resolved, according to Big Machine Records.
“What I’ll say is, people need to communicate, and when people are able to communicate, I think they work things out,” Braun added. “And I think a lot of times things are miscommunications, because I believe that people are fundamentally good. I think there are a lot of real problems in the world, and I think that these problems that are being discussed can be discussed behind closed doors and figured out pretty easily, and it’s something I’ve wanted to do for six months.”
