From Hollywood to Home: Black Voices in Entertainment
- Scooter Braun bought Taylor Swift's masters from Big Machine for $330 million in 2019.
- Taylor Swift publicly opposed the sale and began re-recording her classic albums to regain creative ownership.
- Scooter Braun later sold those masters to Shamrock Capital for $300 million in November 2020.
- In May 2025 Taylor Swift announced she had regained her original recordings, declaring her music "now belongs to me."
- Scooter Braun said he resented his depiction, claimed limited personal contact with Swift and that he "wished everybody the best."
Taylor Swift nearly crossed paths with Scooter Braun and his girlfriend, Sydney Sweeney, while attending Game 4 of the NBA Finals.
The “I Knew It, I Knew You” singer, 36, was seated courtside with her close friends Alana and Este Haim — all wearing custom Knicks gear — at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday, June 10, as the Knicks once again took on the San Antonio Spurs.
Swift and her friends were shown on the ABC broadcast cheering loudly throughout the game, though it’s not clear if they knew how close they were to Braun, 44, and Euphoria star Sweeney, 28.
Footage shared by Entertainment Tonight revealed that Braun and his girlfriend were seated only a few rows behind Swift and her friends — albeit separated by a barricade.
Wednesday’s Knicks game may be the closest Swift and Braun have been to one another since their business dispute erupted in 2019. At that time, Braun acquired Swift’s master recordings from her former record label, Big Machine, for a reported $330 million.
Swift publicly opposed the sale and later commenced re-recording some of her classic albums to retain a sense of creative ownership over the material.
Amidst a very public feud between the two, Braun sold the rights of Swift’s masters to Shamrock Capital for $300 million in November 2020. Nearly five years later, Swift excitedly announced that she’d regained the rights to her original recordings.
“I’m trying to gather my thoughts into something coherent, but right now my mind is just a slideshow,” she wrote on her website in May 2025. “A flashback sequence of all the times I daydreamed about, wished for, and pined away for a chance to get to tell you this news. All the times I was thiiiiiiiis close, reaching out for it, only for it to fall through. I almost stopped thinking it could ever happen, after 20 years of having the carrot dangled and then yanked away. But that’s all in the past now.”
Este Haim, Taylor Swift, and Mariska Hargitay attend Game Four of the 2026 NBA Finals. Al Bello/Getty Images
Swift announced, “I’ve been bursting into tears of joy at random intervals ever since I found out that this is really happening. I really get to say these words: All of the music I’ve ever made… now belongs… to me.”
The singer-songwriter later shared on her fiancé Travis Kelce’s podcast in August 2025 that she genuinely did burst into tears when she confirmed the purchase.
“I knock on the door, he’s playing video games and I’m trying to say it in a normal way … he, like, puts his headset down … and I think he thought something was wrong,” Swift remembered. “You come up and I go, ‘I got all my music back and I just absolutely started heaving crying.”
Swift went on, “[I] dropped, had no power in my legs to support myself. This changed my life. I can’t believe it still.”
At the time, Braun told TMZ that he simply “wish[ed] everybody the best” when he was asked about Swift regaining control of her musical catalog.
Scooter Braun thinks it’s time to lay his drama with Taylor Swift to rest. Braun, 43, spoke out about the Max and Discover+ docuseries Taylor Swift vs. Scooter Braun: Bad Blood at the Bloomberg Screentime event in Los Angeles on Thursday, October 10, revealing that he hadn’t initially planned on watching the two-part series about […]
More recently, Braun admitted on the Suzy Weiss’ “Second Thought” podcast in May that he resented the way he was depicted in the dispute with Swift.
“[I] went from being like, loved and appreciated for over a decade to literally a villain the next night. I don’t want to go into that, but I will say something that will really sum it up that I don’t know if I’ve ever really said,” Braun said. “I don’t know Taylor Swift. I think I’ve met her in my life three times.”
The music mogul went on, “I have never had a substantial conversation with her in my life. I one time got invited to a private party by her. She told me she had the utmost respect for me. I told her I had the most respect for her. You don’t spend $300 million buying a label that she’s on unless you’re excited at the opportunity to work with her.”
Meanwhile, Swift’s courtside appearance at Madison Square Garden for Game 4 of the NBA Finals was also intriguing because she’s rumored to be tying the knot with Kelce, 36, at the “world’s most famous arena” later this year.
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