Justin Bieber’s agent recently lost clients Demi Lovato and Ariana Grande, while Swift, now his arch nemesis, is triumphing by re-recording the songs he took from her

Seneca’s quote about true happiness resonates deeply with 42-year-old Scooter Braun, particularly during a challenging time in his life. Recently, some of the most influential figures he represented, including Demi Lovato, Idina Menzel, and possibly Ariana Grande, have parted ways with his artist management company. His long-standing relationship with Justin Bieber, whom he has managed for three decades, is also uncertain. Meanwhile, his rival, Taylor Swift, has achieved unprecedented success with her tour and re-recorded albums, adding to Braun’s troubles. Raised in Queens by Jewish parents, two of his siblings were adopted from Mozambique. Braun gained recognition as his class president and later made a name for himself by organizing parties for celebrities in the hip-hop scene. He then ventured into artist management, representing Usher and Kanye West before discovering Justin Bieber on YouTube in 2007 and guiding his career to global stardom. Despite ongoing rumors and speculation, Braun remains Bieber’s representative, often appearing in the singer’s social media posts and expressions of gratitude. However, recent reports suggest a potential rift between them, with claims of legal involvement and Bieber’s alleged dissatisfaction with the lack of progress on his new music. The situation remains unclear, with conflicting reports about their professional relationship.

Justin Bieber with Scooter Braun on August 5, 2010.MATT STROSHANE (GETTY IMAGES)

The situation isn’t clear, but it does seem that Ariana Grande has left Braun; she started with him in 2013 and had already left, for a few months, in 2016. For months, the Florida-native has been working more as an actress (shooting Wicked) than as a singer: her most recent song is from October 2020. Media like Billboard and People take it as a given that she will leave. “They are friendly, but she’s outgrown him and is excited to go in a different direction,” a source close to the artist tells People. “Yes, there are negotiations happening because of contracts. But this is her choice. It’s time for something new.”

Grande joins a trend that began in May with rapper J Balvin leaving SB; Demi Lovato and Idina Menzel recently followed. Yesterday, reps for Carly Rae Jepsen, BabyJake and Asher Roth confirmed to AP that those artists are no longer working with Braun. Lovato started with him in 2019. “I couldn’t be happier [or more] inspired and excited; thank you for believing in me,” she stated at the time. Braun responded: “I feel, we feel, very honored, welcome to the family.” Lovato released two hit albums with Braun; a third, a compilation of her greatest rock hits, will be released in September. Menzel, a Broadway star and the voice of Elsa in Frozen, also started working with him in 2019 but left SB in January, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Scooter Braun and Ariana Grande at the AMA (American Music Award) gala held on November 22, 2015, in Los Angeles, California.JEFF KRAVITZ/AMA2015 (FILMMAGIC)

Braun’s career has aroused a lot of curiosity, as well as some hatred. In recent years, he has become one of the most controversial figures in pop culture because of his confrontation with Taylor Swift, who recently became one of the most powerful stars in the music world, with a tour of over 100 concerts, a year and a half that will earn her $1 billion. At the start of her career, Swift signed a disadvantageous contract at 15, which she decided to break in 2018, at age 29; she left her initial company, Big Machine Records, and switched to Universal Music. Then, the company’s owner, Scott Borchetta, also became the owner of all the artist’s masters, that is, her songs and the copyrights to them, whether in the form of lyrics, recordings or videos. That is, Borchetta owned everything that belonged to Swift between 2006, when she released her first album, and 2017, when her sixth album dropped. She assumed that could happen. But she never imagined that she would not have the opportunity to buy her catalog or that Braun would buy Big Machine months later for $300 million (about €265 million); Swift’s work represented half of its value.

Clearly, that caused the singer tremendous anger and pain. In a long post on the now-nearly-forgotten Tumblr website, Swift complained about Braun taking everything from her, the “music I wrote on my bedroom floor and videos I dreamed up and paid for from the money I earned playing in bars, then clubs, then arenas, then stadiums. 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. Swift also accused Braun of ” incessant, manipulative bullying.”

“When I left my masters in Scott’s hands, I made peace with the fact that eventually he would sell them,” she acknowledged. “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.” The saga ended a year and a half later when Braun sold the artist’s catalog to the Shamrock Capital investment group for $405 million. He paid $140 million for it.

Taylor Swift’s ongoing feud with Scooter Braun stems from his acquisition of her music catalog without her approval, which she strongly criticized in a speech at the 2019 Billboard Woman of the Decade award ceremony. Swift accused Braun of epitomizing toxic male privilege in the music industry and expressed her determination to regain control over her music. In response, Swift announced her plans to re-record her early albums to reclaim ownership of her songs. Swift’s fans, known as Swifties, have been relentless in their criticism of Braun, flooding his personal Instagram profile with negative comments on every post. Braun has acknowledged his mistakes in managing the situation with Swift’s masters, admitting to arrogance in his approach. Despite the backlash, Braun has remained largely silent, opting for a more private approach during this turbulent period. As Braun faces a mass exodus of clients, including Swift and others, he has embraced a more reclusive stance, joking about no longer managing himself on social media. It appears that Braun’s time as a prominent artist manager may be coming to an end, as he navigates the fallout from the controversy surrounding Swift’s music rights.

It all goes back to April 2021, when he sold his company to the Korean K-pop group Hybe, a transaction for which he received just over a billion dollars. The company’s CEO left three months later; only this June did Braun become chairman of the firm, which is valued at over $12,090,960,000 (€11.2 billion) and represents musical giants like the group BTS, now on an artistic hiatus. Such duties don’t allow Braun to be as present in the careers of the artists he represents. “He’s getting out of management — he has been for years. That’s the real story,” sources close to Braun tell Variety.

Braun is no longer the same person who organized the One Love Manchester benefit concert in just a couple of weeks following the attack on an Ariana Grande concert in 2017, nor the one who set up an association to build schools, founded by his brother Adam. Now he is a divorced businessman; he split from the mother of his three children in 2021, after seven years of marriage. He owns two houses: one in the Hollywood Hills that is over 59,055 feet in size, which he purchased for $65 million a couple of years ago; and another Alhambra-inspired house in luxurious Montecito, two hours north of Los Angeles, which he bought from Ellen DeGeneres for $36 million last year. They have pools, movie theaters, wineries, patios. The problem is that there is no time left for parties. Nor does he have many artist friends left to set the mood.