In a new episode of “Second Thought,” host Suzy Weiss speaks with Scooter Braun about his rise as one of pop music’s most influential kingmakers—starting with a 12-year-old Justin Bieber in 2007—and the backlash that followed when Taylor Swift’s Swifties targe
When Scooter Braun walks into the conversation, it isn’t just nostalgia following him. It’s the weight of a career built on turning early instincts into global momentum—and the backlash that came when one of pop’s biggest stars decided she’d had enough.
In 2007. Braun said he stumbled on a video of a 12-year-old Justin Bieber singing a cover of Ne-Yo’s “So Sick” on the streets of Ontario. He described the moment as immediate direction—“Sometimes you get a download. ” he told Weiss—saying a blueprint “just gets sent into your head.” He pitched the plan that would follow: make the teenager a global superstar.
Braun’s account. as Weiss presented it in her podcast interview in Los Angeles for “Second Thought. ” ties that early discovery to a rapid. decisive move. In 2008. he flew the tween Bieber and his mother to Atlanta for what he described as their first-ever plane ride. then signed Bieber as a client. Over the next 15 years. Bieber—anchored by Braun behind him—would sell millions of tickets to world tours and become the youngest-ever solo artist to have eight No. 1 Billboard 200 albums, breaking Elvis Presley’s record.
Braun’s influence, in this telling, wasn’t limited to one star. Weiss reports that he later helped engineer the meteoric rises of Ariana Grande. J Balvin. David Guetta. Demi Lovato. and even. for a spell. Kanye West. Braun framed his approach around broad appeal. “If I like something. why shouldn’t millions of other people like it?” he said. describing his sensibilities as populist and “ordinary.”.
He also leaned into tech and early platforms as his cultural bets grew. On his way up “Mount Pop Music,” Braun made early bets on Spotify, Uber, and Dropbox.
But the story shifts sharply from rise to rupture around what Braun understood about the internet first—and what his later critics saw as the cost.
Braun described social media as more than a discovery tool. These networks. he said. weren’t only for finding acts; they were for cultivating and mobilizing fan bases that would stream music. buy merch. and sell out concerts. “We involved them so intimately in the building that they are just as responsible for the success of these artists as I was. ” he said. In his view. he helped architect the move from old-fashioned fan clubs to hyper-online fandoms as his acts became hugely popular both on and offline.
Then, in 2019, one fandom—Swifties, who idolize Taylor Swift—came to see Braun as their archnemesis. Weiss lays out how that conflict became combustible: Swift signed with Big Machine Records in Nashville when she was 15. For years. she asked to buy the rights to her masters. which she said in a 2019 Tumblr post she and the label couldn’t agree on.
Swift’s words—set out in the account Weiss shared—were blunt and personal. After a deal reportedly put her catalog under Braun’s ownership, Swift described it as happening without her say. While accepting Billboard’s Woman of the Decade Award in 2019. she said: “I was denied the chance to purchase my music outright. my entire catalog was sold to Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings.” She added that it was done “without my approval. consultation. or consent.”.
Swift also framed the dispute through industry power dynamics, saying: “The definition of the toxic male privilege in our industry is people saying, ‘But he’s always been nice to me,’ when I’m raising valid concerns about artists and their rights to own their music.”
She vowed to rerecord her own songs as defiance. At the same time, Weiss reports, Swift’s fans descended upon Braun—sending what she describes as death threats and endless online ire.
If the public story became a feud, the private details became contested. Weiss points out that the contracts Swift signed were described as standard for the music industry, and that the label offered her the opportunity to buy her masters—and later warned her a deal was forthcoming.
There were also financial and legal complications raised in the telling. Weiss says Swift’s dad was an investor in Big Machine Records and netted around $15 million from the sale. She also reports that Braun offered Swift the chance to buy back her masters after he acquired the label and then off-loaded it for a profit in 2020. But. according to the account. Swift refused because the buyback required her to sign an NDA. and because Braun would continue to profit from the masters.
The sequence underneath the entertainment is uncomfortable precisely because it’s legible: the same fan systems Braun helped amplify—through social media. intimacy. and mobilization—can also turn into pressure campaigns when trust collapses. One side describes a business standard that came with options; the other side describes a takeover that came without consent.
Weiss’s framing is that the whole saga lands like a story Swift might write: a young woman sells her voice for access to a world she idealizes. then fights back instead of accepting the price. In the version Weiss presents. the “air of truthiness” matters less than the question it leaves hanging—how much control an artist truly gets once the contracts are signed. the catalogs are sold. and the backlash starts moving faster than the paperwork.
Scooter Braun Second Thought Suzy Weiss Justin Bieber Taylor Swift Swifties Big Machine Records Ithaca Holdings masters Spotify Uber Dropbox