Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez have been friends since they were teens, which dates their BFF history back 15 years. That means the fellow pop singers have been there for each other for the career highs and lows. One of Swift’s unfortunate lows was when Scooter Braun purchased Big Machine Records (the label where she recorded her first six albums) and then sold off her album masters. Gomez also has a connection to Braun, considering she had a very public relationship with Braun’s longtime client, Justin Bieber.
Before music manager Scooter Braun famously became the guy who led Taylor Swift to re-record and re-release her first six albums in order to take ownership of her work, he was the guy who discovered a 13-year-old Justin Bieber, who was performing on YouTube before he became a global sensation. Now Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez’s shared connection with Scooter Braun has allegedly contributed to the pair’s beef.
According to Business Insider, Taylor Swift was also “appalled” by the way Scooter Braun “handled” aspects of Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez’s very public relationship prior to them crossing paths regarding her masters. Braun is reportedly a ”quasi-parental figure” to Bieber since his career began, and the way in which the manager dealt with the two teens’ romance was “one of the reasons Swift went after Braun so hard.”
These claims are based on “multiple sources” close to Taylor Swift, but Scooter Braun’s attorney Marty Singer is calling it “ridiculous.” Singer alleged that Braun has remained a positive relationship with Selena Gomez, along with pointing out that Swift and Braun remained friends in “recent years,” whereas a Swift source slammed his comments, saying that it would have been the “friendly” thing to do to ask Swift “if she was okay with him buying her entire life’s work out from under her” if they were, in fact, friends.
At the time the news broke Scooter Braun was set to sell her masters, Swift shared that the move was not only the “worst case scenario” for her, but she’d “learned about Scooter Braun’s purchase of my masters as it was announced to the world” and characterized the manager as one that included “incessant, manipulative bullying” she’d received “at his hands for years.” Selena Gomez publicly decided to support Swift at the time as well, posting a message where she said Braun “robbed and crushed” Swift with the business decision.
Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber had a lengthy relationship (from 2010 and 2014), along with a brief rekindling back in 2017, so it’s not hard to imagine Gomez has dealt with Braun over the years as well. Regarding Gomez’s own feelings about Braun, it’s unclear.
Nowadays, all parties involved seem to be doing well moving forward. Swift’s album re-release are so popular that one of her songs recently broke a major music record. Gomez also continues to remain successful, recently starring in a wildly popular comedy series Only Murders In The Building, streaming for those with a Hulu subscription.
Justin Bieber is happily married to Hailey Bieber and still recording music. Scooter Braun continues to represent Bieber and remains closely entangled in his life as his manager.