Taylor Swift revisited her feud with Kim Kardashian in The Tortured Poets Department, but that’s not the only old “bad blood” returning to the spotlight.
Warner Bros. Discover UK and Ireland will dissect Swift’s public clash with Scooter Braun over the ownership of her music on the new season of vs, the docuseries airing on Discovery+. The Hollywood Reporter reports that Taylor Swift vs Scooter Braun: Bad Blood will explore the clash between Swift, 34, and Braun, 42, after the megastar manager and mogul acquired the rights to her catalog in 2019.
The two hour-long episodes will follow the opposing side of the dispute: one exploring Swift’s side that “the sale was conducted without consulting her and that she has since been blocked from buying back her masters,” per THR; the other focusing on Braun’s claims that she “refused to negotiate and instead incited a public feud by pitting her fan base against him.”
Legal experts, journalists and individuals close to Swift and Braun will present their input in the series. According to THR, Bad Blood will also offer a “detailed examination of the clash, looking into the intricacies of music ownership, gender dynamics in the industry, and the power of fan influence.”
In 2019, Braun’s Ithaca Holdings acquired Big Machine Label Group for an estimated $330 million. The sale included the rights to Swift’s catalog at the time: Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989 and Reputation (Swift signed with Universal Music Group/Republic Records in 2018.)
In a July 2019 Tumblr post, Swift claimed she “pleaded for a chance to own my work” for years but was instead offered a contract to “earn” the rights to her old music, “one [album] for every new one I turned in.
Swift said that she learned about Braun acquiring her masters after the deal was done. “All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I’ve received at his hands for years,” she wrote. “Now Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy.” Scott Borchetta, the Big Machine label founder/CEO, disputed the claims in an open letter, saying that he texted Swift the night before the deal went public, per Billboard.
Since then, Swift has rerecorded her old music for the commercially successful Taylor’s Version series. The release of Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Red (Taylor’s Version), Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) and 1989 (Taylor’s Version) reintroduced the music to Swift’s fans, hyping them up for her career-spanning (and record-breaking) Eras Tour. Swift has since been certified a billionaire and has yet to announce the release date for Taylor’s Versions of her self-titled debut and Reputation.
In October 2020, Ithaca Holdings sold the masters of Swift’s BMLG albums to Shamrock Holdings for a reported $405 million.
