Taylor Swift has lashed out at "bully" Scooter Braun after learning he is set to acquire her entire back catalogue following a deal with Big Machine Label Group officials.
Music mogul Braun, whose management clients include Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, and Kanye West, has agreed to purchase Scott Borchetta's record company, including its Big Machine Music publishing operation, through his Ithaca Holdings firm for more than $300 million (£236.2 million), according to Billboard.
The news means Braun will own Swift's masters for each project released on her former label, from her 2006 self-titled debut right up to 2017's Reputation - and the pop superstar is furious.
In a lengthy post on social media site Tumblr on Sunday (30Jun19), hours after the acquisition was made public, Swift tore into Braun and Borchetta, explaining why she felt so betrayed.
"I learned about Scooter Braun's purchase of my masters as it was announced to the world," she writes. "All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I've received at his hands for years."
Taylor goes on to reference a phone call she shared with Kanye in 2016, when she appeared to give her OK to the rapper to poke fun at her in the lyrics to his track Famous. She subsequently denied his claims, prompting his wife Kim Kardashian to leak an "illegally recorded snippet" of the conversation in question, during which the singer appeared to give her consent to the song lyrics.
The Shake It Off hitmaker suggests Braun was the one who orchestrated the scandal, and supported Kanye's "revenge porn" video for Famous, in which a nude sculpture of Taylor is shown lying in bed alongside Kanye, Kim, and a number of other controversial celebrities.
She also alleges Braun "got his two clients together to bully" her about the headline-grabbing incidents, posting a screenshot of a Facetime call Justin Bieber once had with his manager and Kanye, which he had posted online at the time alongside the message, "Taylor swift what up."
The caption has since been deleted, but it's clear Taylor is still enraged over the whole situation.
"Now Scooter has stripped me of my life's work, that I wasn't given an opportunity to buy," she rages. "Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it."
"This is my worst case scenario," Taylor continues as she turns on Borchetta for allegedly refusing her repeated pleas to purchase the rights to her masters, having originally signed to Big Machine at the age of 15.
Calling his loyalty into question, she claims Borchetta knew how she felt about Braun: "When I left my masters in Scott's hands, I made peace with the fact that eventually he would sell them," she shares. "Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter.
"Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words 'Scooter Braun' escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to. He knew what he was doing; they both did. Controlling a woman who didn't want to be associated with them. In perpetuity. That means forever."
Taylor concludes her missive by encouraging young artists to learn from her past mistake, before promoting her first post-Big Machine album, the upcoming Lover, which will be released on Republic Records in August (19).
She signs off with the words, "Sad and grossed out", along with a broken heart emoji.
Representatives for Braun and Borchetta have yet to respond to Swift's rant.
