Kanye West‘s back and forth feelings toward longtime enemy Taylor Swift, 30, now has him in her corner and wanting to help her reclaim the master recordings to her first six albums. In a Sept. 18 tweet, the 43-year-old artist wrote, “I’M GOING TO PERSONALLY SEE TO IT THAT TAYLOR SWIFT GETS HER MASTERS BACK. SCOOTER IS A CLOSE FAMILY FRIEND,” referring to talent manager and Taylor’s masters owner Scooter Braun, 39. Kanye has worked with Scooter on and off over the years, and at one point served as his manager. HollywoodLife.com has reached out to Scooter, Taylor’s rep and Kanye’s rep about his promise.
Scooter infamously bought the rights to Taylor’s six-album catalog from her eponymous debut through Reputation “in perpituity” in June 2019 for $300 million. The singer at the time claimed she had no idea that her arch enemy’s Ithaca Holdings was behind the purchase, and slammed him hard via her Tumbr account. Taylor wrote, “I learned about Scooter Braun’s purchase of my masters as it was announced to the world. All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I’ve received at his hands for years.”
What’s interesting about Kanye’s sudden desire to help Taylor acquire her masters is that she name checked him in her Tumblr post as one of Scooter’s people who had been “incessantly bullying” her. “Like when Kim Kardashian orchestrated an illegally recorded snippet of a phone call to be leaked and then Scooter got his two clients together to bully me online about it. (See photo),” Taylor wrote in her June 30, 2019 post. She included a snapshot showing Scooter with his mega client Justin Bieber, 26, and Kanye, who were all smiles.
“Or when his client, Kanye West, organized a revenge porn music video which strips my body naked,” Taylor continued, referring to his “Famous” music video that featured a lifelike figure of her nude body. “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,” Taylor continued, calling Scooter’s purchase of her then-life’s work, “my worst case scenario.”
There’s probably not much that Kanye can actually do to help Taylor since Scooter legally purchased her catalog from Big Machine Records boss Scott Borchetta. Even Taylor wrote that “When I left my masters in Scott’s hands, I made peace with the fact that eventually he would sell them. 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.”
Kanye’s promise to Taylor came after after a Sept. 15 Twitter flex where he wrote, “My kids gonna own my masters,” after previously tweeting that he wanted to “see everybody’s contracts at Universal [Music Group] and Sony.” Ye then shared a text conversation with an unidentified party that read, “[Regarding] masters ownership, we can look into buying. But if Taylor’s cost $300 million, yours would cost a lot more, I assume.”
Then came flurry of tweets on Sept. 16 that saw him temporary kicked off Twitter for tweeting the personal phone number to a top executive at Forbes magazine and calling him a “White supremacist.” That same day he also shared a photo where he appeared to be peeing on his Grammy Award, which sat inside a toilet. Kanye then posted his entire 100 page record contract to Twitter as well.
Since his Twitter time out, Kanye has returned with more troubling posts, including one to his seven-year-old daughter North which he tweeted and deleted that read, “NORTHY I AM GOING TO WAR AND PUTTING MY LIFE ON THE LINE AND IF I AM MURDERED DON’T EVER LET WHITE MEDIA TELL YOU I WASNT A GOOD MAN… WHEN PEOPLE THREATEN TO TAKE YOU OUT OF MY LIFE JUST KNOW I LOVE YOU.”
Kanye’s last major Twitter meltdown came in July 2020, where he aimed his feelings at wife Kim, lashing out that she was trying to get him “locked up” and that he had been trying to divorce her. Kim later took to Twitter to address Kanye’s ongoing battle with bipolar disorder and that noted “his words some times do not align with his intentions.”
