Long before Taylor Swift was “blowing off steam” with controversial musician Matty Healy, she had other controversies.
A few years ago, Taylor lost out on the sale of — essentially — her life’s work. Since then, she has released much-hyped “Taylor’s Version” editions of older albums.
But the betrayal, never even getting a chance to purchase her own music, still hurt.
It hurt her, anyway. Her dad, it turns out, pocketed a tidy $15 million as his cut of the sale. Did he sell her out?
In 2019, Scott Borchetta, who founded Big Machine Label Group, put his company up for sale.
At the time, notorious music manager Scooter Braun purchased the lot for $330 million.
A huge portion of that was Taylor Swift’s music catalogue. It came into Scooter’s possession, much to Taylor’s dismay.
Specifically, Ithica Holdings made the purchase, absorbing Taylor’s lengthy professional history. Ithica is Scooter’s, of course.
Since then, one need only breathe the name “Scooter” in the presence of stan Twitter in order to see palpable rage.
Taylor never had a chance to bid on her own work. She did not even receive a head’s up our a courtesy ahead of the purchase. The situation totally sucks.
Interestingly, a new report from Music Business Worldwide says that someone very close to her was in on the deal. Sort of.
Taylor’s father, Scott Swift, raked in a tidy $15.1 million on this massive music sale.
So, did he (almost literally) sell out his daughter?
Not quite!
What makes this even more interesting is that he apparently didn’t know about the sale until after the fact.
There was a meeting for invested parties … but he skipped it, for a very sweet reason.
According to Taylor’s representative, Scott deliberately skipped a private phone call, even though he was a shareholder.
The reason was simple: the phone call involved a hefty NDA. He would be enjoined from discussing the conversation with anyone — including his daughter.
Rather than keeping secrets from Taylor, he opted to avoid the situation altogether. Scott opted out without knowing what it was. 48 hours later, the announcement about the sale to Scooter took place.
Scott was not in a position to change the plans, either. It sounds like the phone call was a formality.
Why? Because Scott Borchetta wanted to make the sale. And controlled 90% of the stock. Scott’s 5% share netted him millions, but no actual control.
With that level of ownership resting with one person, calls were a mix of courtesy and legal due diligence. Scott could not have changed anything for Taylor’s benefit.
And we’re sure that he would have if he could. But he and the other few investors combined could not have changed things.
So, no, Taylor’s dad did not betray her. He was as in the dark as she was — by choice. A complicated choice, but the right one.
He just happened to make a little money along the way.