Long before Taylor Swift “vented” with controversial musician Matty Healy, she had other controversies.
A few years ago, Taylor lost the sale of, essentially, her life’s work. Since then, she has released highly publicized “Taylor’s Version” editions of older albums.
But the betrayal, never getting the chance to buy his own music, still hurt.
It hurt her, anyway. It turned out that her father pocketed $15 million as part of the sale. She sold?
In 2019, Scott Borchetta, founder of Big Machine Label Group, put his company up for sale.
At the time, notorious music manager Scooter Braun bought the lot for $330 million.
A big part of that was Taylor Swift’s music catalog. It found its way into Scooter’s hands, much to Taylor’s dismay.
Specifically, Ithica Holdings made the purchase, absorbing Taylor’s long career. Ithica is from Scooter, of course.
Since then, just breathe the name “Scooter” in the presence of Twitter to see the palpable rage.
Taylor never got a chance to bid on his own work. He didn’t even get a courtesy notice before the purchase. The situation totally sucks.
Interestingly, a new report Music business around the world says someone very close to her was in on the deal. Something like.
Taylor’s father, Scott Swift, raised $15.1 million in this massive music sale.
So did you (almost literally) sell your daughter?
Not quite!
What makes this even more interesting is that he apparently didn’t find out about the sale until after the fact.
There was a stakeholder meeting… but it was skipped, 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 sizeable NDA. He would be prohibited from discussing the conversation with anyone, including his daughter.
Rather than keep secrets from Taylor, he chose to avoid the situation entirely. Scott chose not to know what he was. 48 hours later, the announcement of the sale to Scooter was made.
Scott was in no position to change plans either. It seems the phone call was a formality.
Because? Because Scott Borchetta wanted to make the sale. And he controlled 90% of the shares. Scott’s 5% stake brought him millions, but no real control.
With that level of ownership in the hands of a single person, the calls were a mix of courtesy and legal due diligence. Scott couldn’t have changed a thing for Taylor’s benefit.
And we’re sure he would have if he could. But he and the few other investors combined couldn’t have turned things around.
So, no, Taylor’s father didn’t betray her. He was as dark as she was, by choice. A difficult choice, but the right one.
He just made a little money along the way.
