By: Maddie Bimonte and Jack Warner

An artist always needs a manager. Someone to jump start their career and be a driving force in getting them gigs and appearances.

But most of the time, they’re the villains in the story. Take a look at Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis Pressley’s manager. Or even Allen Klein who ripped off bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. But none are truly worse in this industry than “spider-boy”, Scott “Scooter” Braun.

Scooter Braun got his start as a party promoter in Atlanta and drew his first breaths of fame after rapper and producer Jermaine Dupri hired him. But more notably, Braun’s career skyrocketed once he discovered a young teenage star in 2007 singing a Ne-Yo cover. That, was Justin Bieber.

Ever since, Braun has been acquiring stars like a 7-year-old boy collects pokemon cards, from celebs such as Justin Bieber, Kanye West, Ariana Grande and Demi Lovato, just to name a few.

However, Braun hasn’t been a goody-two shoes manager by any means. In fact, he’s one of the worst. Just look at what he did to America’s Sweetheart, Taylor Swift. Braun was all buddy-buddy with West back in 2016 when the damaging leaked phone call sent Swift into hiding for about a year, only for her to rise from the ashes like a phoenix with the album Reputation.

But damage was really done when Swift’s masters were up for grabs after her former label Big Machine Records decided to sell them. And they didn’t go to her, but to Braun. Swift was understandably upset that a guy that played a role in some of the worst years of her life now owned her entire musical career.

“Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words ‘Scooter Braun’ escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to,” Swift once wrote in an emotional Tumblr post to her fans, addressing her denial from being allowed to perform her own songs at the 2019 AMAs.

And then, just a year after owning her masters, he dumped them onto another record label—without telling Swift. So yeah, considering the sale of Swift’s masters was $300 million, it’s fair to say that Scooter Braun truly is the “king of thieves”.

We’d be remiss to mention that he’s actually tanking right now. We are overjoyed that Braun is losing clients left and right, supposedly because he’s getting a “bigger role” (more like a bigger head) as HYBE America CEO. We’d like to think it’s finally that his clients are fed up with his money-hungry nature.

Don’t forget that this is the guy who publicly bashed his now-former client Ariana Grande’s dating life. Saying, “And when the sh**ty boyfriends leave, she starts to see the light on some stuff” in an interview back in 2020, as well as pushed her to put songs she felt personally uncomfortable with on her album Thank U, Next about her deceased ex Mac Miller.

The guy is totally unfeeling and uncaring to his clients, focused on the next big concert or promotional gig rather than the feelings and emotions of his clients. We could go on and on about the horrible things he’s said about all of his clients, even his prized protege Bieber, but we think you get the point.

But despite all of the disrespect, borderline sociopathic behavior, and blatant jackassery that has oozed from Scooter Braun’s insecure, pathetic self, a rose grew from the concrete: Taylor Swift’s re-recordings.

Taylor’s Version has become a term synonymous with independence and brain-shattering streaming statistics. Whether it be the 1.81 million equivalent album units accumulated from the re-release of her debut album Fearless, nearly triple the amount of units of the 2008 version. Or perhaps her re-release of Red, which has earned 3.32 million equivalent album units since its 2021 release, absolutely stomping the initial 390,000 units accumulated from the 2012 release.

The world has come together to celebrate Swift taking back what is rightfully hers, and has been gifted with several unreleased tracks from the vault as well. The individual with an actual talent, an actual ability to resonate with others, and an actual legacy was the one who exited this situation victorious. Scooter has made a point of running a business model based on making others feel small, yet now he’s microscopic. How poetic is that?

Now, with fewer and fewer people to manage, we can only hope Braun will “swiftly” fade into the backdrop of anonymity.