By Larisha Paul
Nearly five years after Scooter Braun‘s Ithaca Holdings acquired Scott Borchetta’s Big Machine Label Group — and with it, the master recordings to each of Taylor Swift‘s first six studio albums — the infamous battle between Braun and Swift will be the focus of a new season of the Discovery+ series VS.
Taylor Swift vs Scooter Braun: Bad Blood will premiere in June with two episodes. Each segment will span a full hour and explore the two sides of the dispute that led to Swift beginning the process of re-recording her studio albums from Taylor Swift (2006) through Reputation (2017). The show will reportedly provide a “comprehensive” look inside the industry practices, gender dynamics, and fandom culture that have shaped this particular conflict.
Swift’s side argues that she was shut out of the sale of her masters in a betrayal that prevented her from bidding on the purchase. In 2019, the musician published an extensive blog on her Tumblr account, in which she revealed that she “learned about Scooter Braun’s purchase of my masters as it was announced to the world,” adding that Borchetta “knew what he was doing” selling her music to someone she had a long-standing conflict with.
Braun’s side, conversely, argues that Swift “refused to negotiate and instead incited a public feud by pitting her fan base against him,” according to a description of the upcoming VS season. The music manager and executive addressed the exchange during an appearance on NPR’s The Limits podcast in 2022.
“I think a lot of things got lost in translation. I think that when you have a conflict with someone, it’s very hard to resolve it if you’re not willing to have a conversation,” Braun said at the time. “So the regret I have there is that I made the assumption that everyone, once the deal was done, was going to have a conversation with me, see my intent, see my character and say, great, let’s be in business together. And I made that assumption with people that I didn’t know.”
Swift has now completed four of her six re-recordings, having sporadically shared the Taylor’s Version releases for Fearless, Red, Speak Now, and 1989 over the past three years.
Taylor Swift vs. Scooter Braun: Bad Blood will reportedly feature commentary from journalists, legal experts, and figures close to Swift and Braun.
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