Scooter Braun Was Telling The Truth All This Time! PROOF He Wanted To Sell Taylor Swift Back Her Masters!

Scooter Braun was telling the truth all along!

Perezcious readers know the 44-year-old record executive has been the villain in the eyes of many Swifties for years over how he handled the sale of Taylor Swift’s masters. But should he have been demonized all this time? The drama started when Scooter shelled out $300 million to purchase Big Machine Label Group and its music catalog through his holding company, Ithaca Ventures. This included all of the pop star’s first six albums.

Taylor first claimed she found out about the sale with the rest of the world and never got the chance to purchase her own music before it went to Justin Bieber’s former manager. And in November 2020, Scooter sold her masters to Shamrock Capital — which only upset her more. She then accused the businessman’s team of wanting her to sign an “ironclad NDA stating I would never say another word about Scooter Braun unless it was positive, before we could even look at the financial records of BMLG.”

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Tay Tay wasn’t going to stand for it, though. The songstress got revenge and re-recorded most of her first six albums before she was finally able to buy the rights back from Shamrock last summer. With no help from Scooter!

However, throughout the whole saga, Scooter has maintained that Taylor lied about everything. He insisted to Variety back in 2023 that he offered to sell her music back to her, but her team rejected it:

“I regret and it makes me sad that Taylor had that reaction to the deal. … All of what happened has been very confusing and not based on anything factual. I don’t know what story she was told. I asked for her to sit down with me several times, but she refused. I offered to sell her the catalog back and went under NDA, but her team refused.”

Guess what? It turns out Scooter told the truth all this time! And there was even proof to back it up!

Back in 2023, Music Business Worldwide obtained old emails between Braun and Taylor’s teams about her masters — and it shows he wanted to sell it back to her! Jay Schaudies from the musician’s management firm 13 Management reached out to him on May 15, 2020. This was 11 months after Ithaca Holdings bought the masters and before Scooter sold it to Shamrock in October 2020, FYI. In the email, Schaudies CONFIRMED that Scooter expressed interest in selling Tay her masters:

“We last spoke on May 5 when you asked me to call you after I emailed you saying that we were still interested in purchasing all of the Taylor Swift assets and rights held by BMLG. You said you were not interested in selling BMLG as a whole, but that you were interested in selling Taylor her masters. You have told me and others, such as Ed Sheeran, that you’d like to see Taylor own these, and I appreciate any efforts on your part to help make that happen.”

Whoa…

Schaudies then brings up what Taylor seemed to have an issue with regarding the sale of all her masters — an NDA in which she couldn’t say anything about Scooter. Here’s some background on the matter. According to Music Business Worldwide, 13 Management and Ithaca mutually signed a non-disclosure agreement back in November 2019, allowing her team to investigate the finances of Big Machine, presumably with the plan of letting her acquire her masters back from Scooter. Wait, so they were in talks to purchase her music even back then? However, the publication obtained the signed NDA and discovered it made no mention of the aforementioned clause!

So, did the Evermore artist lie about the allegation? Apparently, Ithaca and 13 Management started working together to draft a whole new NDA months later! And it is the clause within this version that Taylor took issue with! Schaudies continued to write in the email to Braun:

“As you know, we discussed a possible transaction in November and December last year and we both signed an NDA, but then David Bolno said he wanted to stop the process and did not allow us to look at any of the underlying financials. In our recent call, you said you would respond to me in 48 hours. Since it has now been almost two full business weeks without further communication from you on this point, I wanted to repeat, again, my desire to get inside the data room and allow Ernst & Young to conduct necessary due diligence. I offered to sign a new NDA, and you said you wanted to think about that, considering more stringent restrictions beyond the deal itself. You suggested that both Taylor and her publicist Tree Paine should be prohibited from speaking at all about you or your investors. I said that can’t happen, but that the details of the deal could be protected.”

He then offered to sign a similar NDA as they did before in November 2019:

“The NDA cannot serve as a one-sided, surrogate gag order. Taylor must be free to promote her music and when she re-records old songs, she should be free to speak without inappropriate limitations. Nevertheless, we are more than happy to sign a customary NDA, as we did before.”

It gets somewhat messy from there…

In the spring/summer of 2022, Ithaca Holdings and 13 Management reportedly went back and forth over the draft of the new NDA. Music Business Worldwide obtained the entire draft of that agreement, which was sent by a legal rep for Ithaca Holdings to Schaudies on June 29, 2020. Ithaca wanted to sign off on this version of the NDA, but Taylor and her team, on the other hand? Well, we all know how the story played out here! Obviously, NOT! And it’s all because of “Clause 4” in the agreement!

Music Business Worldwide reported that Scooter and Taylor are not named as the “parties” in the draft, but the document makes it clear that 13 Management is  “acting expressly on behalf and as the authorized agent for Taylor Swift.” She is also referred to as the “Artist” throughout the NDA.

As we mentioned, “Clause 4” is the big issue here. Taylor claimed that the agreement would restrict her from ever saying a word about Scooter, which she was not down for. And it does limit what each party can say about the other publicly. However, it appears this clause only restricts what they can say when it comes to the details of the deal negotiation — and not any individuals, despite what Taylor suggested! What! This is what the clause says in full, per Music Business Worldwide:

“4. No Disclosures Of Any Kind About Discussions. Each Party and Artist agrees that, without the prior written consent of the other Party, no Party, no Party’s Representative, and neither Artist nor Artist’s Representatives, may disclose, reveal, divulge, provide, comment on, characterize, opine on, or suggest to any person or entity (whether directly or indirectly) any of the following:

(a) The existence of this Agreement;

(b) the existence of, substance of, and/or full or partial details about any Discussion Information (and any aspect of it), including the substance or existence of any proposals or valuations;

(c) the existence of, substance of, and/or full or partial details about any Possible Transaction; or

(d) the contents or substance of any Evaluation Material and the fact that any Party or its Representatives have received or provided Evaluation Material.
Any information required to be treated as confidential under this Agreement shall be referred to as ‘Confidential Information.’

The terms ‘Disclose,’ ‘Disclosed,’ or ‘Disclosure’ shall mean to reveal, divulge, give, comment on, characterize, opine about, or make available Materials, or any part thereof, or any information contained therein, to any person or entity or to the public at large, including via social media posts (e.g. Twitter, Instagram, or other platforms) or by providing information to members of the news media (whether on background or as an anonymous source).”

OMG!

So, under this agreement, it sounds like Scooter and Taylor could publicly bash each other if they wanted to! They just couldn’t talk about or criticize the deal!

As we said, Taylor’s team did not agree to the deal in the end. Music Business Worldwide reported that Schaudies responded to the drafted NDA a month later, on July 29, 2020, saying he is concerned that the “proposed NDA… still feels like an attempt to muzzle Taylor.” OK, fair. But here’s where it gets crazy! Ithaca’s legal rep then told Schaudies on August 25 that “after discussing internally, we feel like we can move forward on the prior form,” meaning they would scrap the June 2020 NDA and go back to the original November 2019 NDA! If that is the case, what was the problem then? Why did it all fall apart?

A senior ex-employee of Ithaca, who was involved in the deal negotiations, then told Music Business Worldwide that Scooter verbally made two “hard offers” to Schaudies on two separate occasions. The first offer happened in November 2019 – shortly before the American Music Awards. The insider said he told 13 Management he was willing to sell Taylor’s six masters for $300 million, and that Ithaca secured pre-approval on a financing deal, provided by 23 Capital, to fully fund her acquisition. However, the offer was turned down.

Then, Scooter made a second offer in October 2022. The insider said he offered to sell Taylor’s masters to her for $305 million – a $100 million discount on the $405 million that Shamrock Capital eventually paid. That offer was reportedly also rejected, so Scooter went ahead to sell her music to Shamrock. At the time of the report, a source close to Taylor fired back via email:

“In 2020, the ability to evaluate any opportunity for Taylor to purchase her catalog was conditioned on signing a gag order NDA prohibiting her from ever speaking the truth about Scooter and the situation. Taylor has completely moved on from this saga, and has turned what started out as an extremely painful situation into one of most fulfilling creative endeavors of her life.”

Hmm. The former employee insisted there was never an NDA containing a “gag order” over her ability to speak about Scooter, though. The source continued:

“There were multiple offers for [Swift] to purchase her masters from [Braun] and at no point in the NDA was she ordered to be silent by Scooter. In fact, he isn’t even mentioned. Her narrative was always very confusing to me.”

All this just goes to show that Scooter really did want to sell Taylor her masters! He was honest the whole time! Wow! What are your reactions, Perezcious readers? Let us know in the comments (below)!

[Image via Patricia Schlein/MEGA/WENN]