Taylor Swift said she was blindsided when her music was sold over to Scooter Braun … but a new report says her pops cashed in a huge paycheck on the deal.
For those unaware, TS’ catalog was shipped off to Scooter in 2019 when Scott Borchetta, founder of Big Machine Label Group, put his company up for sale … Scooter’s Ithaca Holdings paid $330 mil to take it all.
Sources close to the negotiations tell us Taylor was never involved in any of those calls or directly in the deal at all, but a new report is challenging how much she actually knew about Scooter’s move.
The sale spawned a ton of turmoil, as well as multiple “Taylor’s Version” re-records of some of her past work … but according to Music Business Worldwide, Taylor’s dad Scott Swift took home $15.1M in the monumental sale.
Despite his cashing in, back in 2019 a rep for Taylor said he didn’t have knowledge of the deal before it happened — intentionally skipping a private NDA-signed phone call about a potential deal — so that he didn’t have to withhold anything from Taylor.
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The rep stated, “On June 25, there was a shareholder phone call that Scott Swift did not participate in due to a very strict NDA that bound all shareholders and prohibited any discussion at all without risk of severe penalty. Her dad did not join that call because he did not want to be required to withhold any information from his own daughter. Taylor found out from the news articles when she woke up before seeing any text from Scott Borchetta, and he did not call her in advance.”
A source close to the negotiations also added the shareholder meeting was held only 48 hours prior to the announcement of the sale to Scooter and since Scott Borchetta controlled 90% of the stock, the sale was a forgone conclusion.
The outlet confirms he was 1 of the 5 shareholders of BMLG at the time of the sale — owning about 5% of the company when Borchetta unloaded it to Scooter. Quite the payday, especially considering the pain Taylor claimed the sale caused her.
Taylor’s been re-recording all of her old albums ever since her music was sold off … in order to have a version she’d be able to own.
Scooter also unloaded Taylor’s master rights of her first 6 albums to an unknown investment fund for $300M in 2020, and she ripped into Scooter for them not being for sale to her.
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For what it’s worth, it seems like Taylor still came out ahead compared to her dad’s payout — she’s been selling out shows left and right on her current Eras Tour.
