Scooter Braun reportedly wasn’t fond of the “Karma” Kelly Clarkson was sending his way when she recommend that Taylor Swift re-records the six albums that were sold out from under her to him in 2019. The American Idol alum, 41, revealed Scooter, 42, called her manager after she tweeted the idea to the 33-year-old global superstar when Andy Cohen mentioned the situation on his SiriusXM show in a preview clip released on Thursday, June 22. “I think Scooter took offense to it … and I think he reached out at the time to my manager,” she recalled. “It wasn’t anything against him.”
“I just, when she came out and said that [about her albums] and I heard about it, I was like, ‘Whatever. Like, rerecord them. Your fans will support you,'” Kelly clarified about the situation. “They did!”
The “Since U Been Gone” singer added that she does not know specific details about the situation and that Scooter never said anything directly to her. “I don’t know what happened or what was said, but I think he thought I was attacking him,” Kelly explained. “All I heard was, ‘Man, I really want to own [my work],'” she further recalled. Kelly further explained that she could sympathize with Taylor’s goal of owning her music. “She writes everything. It’s so important to her. She’s a businesswoman,” she said.
“It felt wrong that she didn’t have the opportunity [to buy her music]. Right? That’s the thing,” the mother of two continued. “It’s like, if you have the opportunity and you choose to not pay that much money, that’s one thing, but to not have the opportunity to own something that is really important to you … I knew it was important to her.” Kelly added that “she’s not that artist” who cares about what she owns and that she’s “not a businesswoman at all.”
Kelly went on to call Taylor a “genius.” She raved, “Not only did she rerecord it, she planned it, like, with this Eras Tour where she gets to [perform everything]. Like, this woman is brilliant.”
The “Stronger” hitmaker lastly replied to Andy questioning if Taylor thanked her for the idea. “No,” she smiled. “She’s brilliant. She would have come up with that on her own and she maybe already had before I even tweeted it.” The full interview is set to premiere on Friday, June 23.
As fans will recall, Taylor and Scooter entered a he-said-she-said war regarding what actually went down behind closed doors following the sale of her records, which were under Big Machine Records and its founder, Scott Borchetta, who made the deal with Scooter. While Scooter claimed Tayor had the opportunity to own her first six albums, which begin with her self-titled debut from 2006 to 2017’s Reputation, Taylor claimed the deal was not fair at all.
“For years I asked, pleaded for a chance to own my work. Instead I was given an opportunity to sign back up to Big Machine Records and ‘earn’ one album back at a time, one for every new one I turned in,” she wrote in a June 2019 Tumblr post. “I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future. I had to make the excruciating choice to leave behind my past. 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.”
The “Midnights” hitmaker officially began to re-record her first six albums in 2020, and has so far released Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version). Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is due out on July 7, leaving three albums left: Taylor Swift, 1989, and Reputation.