On Thursday, December 12, Taylor Swift was honored as the Woman of the Decade at Billboard’s Women In Music Awards. The Lover singer used her speech at the event as an opportunity to speak about her current situation with Scooter Braun and the “toxic male privilege” present in the music industry.
The now 30-year-old touched on the “unregulated world of private equity coming in and buying our music as if it’s real estate—as if it’s an app or a shoe line” before she called out the 38-year-old music manager by name.
“Scooter never contacted me or my team to discuss it prior to the sale or even when it was announced,” she claimed to the audience. “I’m fairly certain he knew exactly how I would feel about it, though, and let me just say that the definition of toxic male privilege in our industry is people saying ‘but he’s always been nice to me’ when I’m raising valid concerns about artists and their right to own their music.”
As fans know, back in June, Scooter purchased the rights to her masters and she announced the acquisition in a lengthy Tumblr post that accused the music manager of “incessant, manipulative bullying.”
In November, the singer also claimed that Scooter was not allowing her to perform her old songs at the 2019 American Music Awards — or any televised event. Big Machine Records responded in a statement that they would allow the songstress to perform her old songs at the awards show.
During her speech on December 12, Taylor also said that she would do anything to get her entire music catalog back.
“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… God, I would have paid so much for them! Anything to own my work that was an actual sale option, but it wasn’t given to me,” she said.
Scooter has yet to comment on Taylor’s speech, however he has spoken out in the past about Taylor’s allegations against him.
“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,” he said at the 2019 Entertainment Industry Conference on November 21. “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.”
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