Demi Lovato Defends Scooter Braun After Taylor Swift Accuses Him of Bullying: 'He's a Good Man'
Demi Lovato is defending her manager Scooter Braun as a “good man” after he was accused of bullying by Taylor Swift, shortly after she learned he’d purchased her musical catalog from her former record label.
On Sunday, Swift wrote a scathing note on Tumblr claiming Braun had used Justin Bieber and Kanye West to team up against her on social media in light of her feud with West and Kim Kardashian regarding the lyrics of West’s song “Famous.”
“All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I’ve received at his hands for years,” Swift wrote of the moment she’d learned Braun bought her masters from Big Machine Label Group founder, Scott Borchetta. “Like when Kim Kardashian orchestrated an illegally recorded snippet of a phone call to be leaked and then Scooter got his two clients together to bully me online about it.”
As evidence, she included a screenshot of a 2016 Instagram post by Bieber that featured him on a Facetime call with West and Braun with the since-deleted caption, “Taylor swift what up.”
Atop the photo, she circled Braun in red and wrote, “This is Scooter Braun, bullying me on social media when I was at my lowest point. He’s about to own all the music I’ve ever made.”
Lovato, who signed with Braun in May, offered her support for the manager on her Instagram Story, declaring her loyalty to “the ones on my team.”
“I have dealt with bad people in the industry and Scooter is not one of them. He’s a good man. Personally, I’m grateful he came into my life when he did. Please stop ‘dragging’ people or bullying them. There’s enough hate in this world as it is,” she wrote.
“Y’all can come after me all you want but I’m always gonna stay loyal to my team. I value loyalty more than most people in this world and if my name is gonna be brought into conversations I’m gonna stand up for myself and the ones on my team.”
The “Tell Me You Love Me” singer announced their partnership with a photo of the pair smiling beside her new contract on Instagram.
“GUYS!!!!!!! Dreams came true today for me. I officially have a NEW MANAGER!!! And not just any new manager but the one and only @scooterbraun!!!!” she wrote. “Couldn’t be happier, inspired and excited to begin this next chapter with you Scooter!!! Thank you for believing in me and for being apart of this new journey. Let’s DO THIS!!!!!!”
She and Swift, meanwhile, have had an on-and-off friendship over the years, with Lovato making headlines in 2016 for appearing to criticize the singer over a $250,000 donation she made to Kesha amid her legal battle with Dr. Luke.
“Take something to Capitol Hill or actually speak out about something and then I’ll be impressed,” Lovato wrote on Twitter.
She later defended herself on Instagram, writing that she was not explicitly “shading” Swift.
“If you take it that way then fine. I’m just tired of seeing women use ‘women empowerment’ and ‘feminism’ to further brands without actually being the ones that have the uncomfortable conversations,” she wrote.
Swift’s note about Braun’s $300 million purchase of her masters called the scenario her “worst nightmare.”
“Now Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy. Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it,” she wrote. “This is my worst case scenario.”
Her message prompted support from celebrities including Halsey and Cara Delevingne, as well as criticism from those close to Braun, like Bieber.
The “Sorry” singer wrote a lengthy Instagram message defending Braun and apologizing for the 2016 Instagram photo.
“Scooter has had your back since the days you graciously let me open up for you!” Bieber wrote. “What were you trying to accomplish by posting that blog? Seems to me like it was to get sympathy u also knew that in posting that your fans would go and bully scooter. Anyway, One thing I know is both Scooter and I love you.”
Borchetta, meanwhile, also defended selling Swift’s music to Braun, and denied her claim that “any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words ‘Scooter Braun’ escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to.”
“As to her comments about ‘being in tears or close to it’ anytime my new partner Scooter Braun’s name was brought up, I certainly never experienced that,” Borchetta wrote in a lengthy statement on the label’s website.
“Was I aware of some prior issues between Taylor and Justin Bieber? Yes. But there were also times where Taylor knew that I was close to Scooter and that Scooter was a very good source of information for upcoming album releases, tours, etc, and I’d reach out to him for information on our behalf,” Borchetta continued.
“Scooter was never anything but positive about Taylor. He called me directly about Manchester to see if Taylor would participate (she declined),” he said, referring to Braun’s client Ariana Grande’s Manchester One Love concert that raised funds for the victims of the May 2017 terrorist attack outside her concert that killed 22 and injured over 100 people.
“He called me directly to see if Taylor wanted to participate in the Parkland March (she declined),” Borchetta said of the March for Our Lives in March 2018 that was organized and led by the students and survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
He added, “Scooter has always been and will continue to be a supporter and honest custodian for Taylor and her music.”
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