Taylor Swift’s Feud With Scooter Braun Over Her Masters to Be Examined in New Documentary
Taylor Swift‘s famous feud with Scooter Braun is getting the documentary treatment. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Discovery+ announced Tuesday (May 7) that its series Vs will spend its next season – titled Taylor Swift vs Scooter Braun: Bad Blood — exploring how it all went down, from the mogul’s acquisition of the pop star’s masters to the 14-time Grammy winner’s “Taylor’s Version” re-recording projects and every fiery blogpost in between.
In an effort to represent both parties’ sides equally, the two-part series will reportedly feature legal experts and journalists, as well as people close to Swift and Braun. It’ll examine the roles of gender dynamics, fandom influence and artist rights while dissecting the SB Projects founder’s $300 million purchase of the “Karma” singer’s catalog from Big Machine Records’ Scott Borchetta in 2019, as well as Swift’s allegations that Borchetta blocked her own attempts at acquiring the rights to her first six albums.
Swift also claimed at the time that she was not informed of Braun’s acquisition before it happened — which Borchetta denied — writing in a Tumblr blogpost that she’d only learned of the news “as it was announced to the world.” “All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I’ve received at his hands for years,” she’d added of Braun. “This is my worst case scenario. This is what happens when you sign a deal at fifteen to someone for whom the term ‘loyalty’ is clearly just a contractual concept.”
Premiering in June, Taylor Swift vs Scooter Braun: Bad Blood follows previous installments that focused on Kim Kardashian’s divorce from Ye — formerly Kanye West — in 2021, and Johnny Depp’s defamation trial against Amber Heard in 2022.
“Taylor Swift’s dispute with Scooter Braun over the ownership of her music exploded into the mainstream, taking contract law from board room to social media and into public interest,” Charlotte Reid, vp of commissioning, networks & streaming at WBD U.K. & Ireland, said in a statement. “It’s a high-profile, high-interest story that opened debate on fandom and dominated headlines, one which will resonate with our viewers.”
In the five years since the initial fallout of Swift and Braun’s conflict, the musician has turned in four of her six planned re-records, with Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version) both debuting atop the Billboard 200 in 2021, and Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) and 1989 (Taylor’s Version) entering at No. 1 in 2023. The rollout of the re-records has gone hand-in-hand with Swift’s ongoing Eras Tour, which recently launched the star to billionaire status.
“I spent 10 years of my life trying rigorously to purchase my masters outright and was then denied that opportunity, and I just don’t want that to happen to another artist if I can help it,” she told Billboard in 2019. “I do want my music to live on. I do want it to be in movies, I do want it to be in commercials. But I only want that if I own it.”
Hannah Dailey
Billboard
