Taylor Swift has accused her old label boss Scott Borchetta of treating her like a “prized calf” by selling her master recordings to Scooter Braun.
Justin Bieber’s manager purchased Borchetta’s label Big Machine – which owns Swift’s first six albums – for $300 million (£245 million) in June, enraging the Bad Blood hitmaker due to her rocky relationship with Braun.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone magazine, the 29-year-old singer said she was heartbroken about the sale, as she believed Borchetta, who signed her as a teenager, thought of her like a “daughter” rather than an asset.
“I wanted to be friends with him,” Swift fumed. “I thought I knew what betrayal felt like, but this stuff that happened with him was a redefinition of betrayal for me, just because it felt like it was family. To go from feeling like you’re being looked at as a daughter to this grotesque feeling of ‘Oh, I was actually his prized calf that he was fattening up to sell to the slaughterhouse that would pay the most.'”
After the deal was signed, Taylor denounced Borchetta and Braun in a Tumblr post – but then her old label boss hit back, claiming she had refused to perform at Ariana Grande’s One Love Manchester charity concert and the Parkland shooting victims’ march.
Swift called his words “unbelievable”, explaining that her team did not field any requests from Braun due to their feud, which dates back to a disagreement with his client Kanye West.
“Here’s the thing: Everyone in my team knew if Scooter Braun brings us something, do not bring it to me,” the musician raged. “The fact that those two are in business together after the things he said about Scooter Braun – it’s really hard to shock me. And this was utterly shocking.”
Slamming the pair for how they announced the deal, she added: “These are two very rich, very powerful men, using $300 million of other people’s money to purchase, like, the most feminine body of work. And then they’re standing in a wood-panel bar doing a tacky photo shoot, raising a glass of scotch to themselves. Because they pulled one over on me and got this done so sneakily that I didn’t even see it coming. And I couldn’t say anything about it.”
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