Taylor Swift has made a very public plea to her fanbase for help in her ongoing battle against her former label boss Scott Borchetta and music manager Scooter Braun.
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In a statement posted to social media, T-Swift claimed she was being prevented by Borchetta and Braun from performing a medley of her old songs at the American Music Awards in a few weeks, where she is being honoured with an Artist of the Decade Award.
“I’ve been planning to perform a medley of my hits throughout the decade on the show,” she said.
“Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun have now said that I’m not allowed to perform my old songs on television because they claim that would be re-recording my music before I’m allowed to next year.”
Don’t know what else to do pic.twitter.com/1uBrXwviTS
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) November 14, 2019
Braun recently acquired Big Machine Records, the label under which Swift recorded her first six award-winning albums. Essentially, everything album except for Lover is no longer under her control.
Swift has plans to re-record those albums from 2020, which she is legally permitted to do so. However, she claims Borchetta and Braun are blocking her from performing any of her old hits, because it would technically be prior to her legally rerecording them.
“Don’t know what else to do,” Swift said.
She also dropped the bombshell news that a Netflix documentary about her life is in the works, but claimed Borchetta and Braun are also preventing that from going ahead.
“Additionally and this isn’t the way I had planned on telling you this news – Netflix has created a documentary about my life for the past few years,” she said.
“Scott and Scooter have declined the use of my older music or performance footage for this project, even though there is no mention of either of them or Big Machine Records anywhere in the film.
“Scott Borchetta told my team that they’ll allow me to use my music only if I do these things: If I agree to not re-record copycat versions of my songs next year (which is something I’m both legally allowed to do and looking forward to) and also told my team that I need to stop talking about him and Scooter Braun.
“I feel very strongly that sharing what is happening to me could change the awareness level for other artists and potentially help them avoid a similar fate.
“The message being sent to me is very clear. Basically, be a good little girl and shut up. Or you’ll be punished.
“This is WRONG. Neither of these men had a hand in the writing of those songs. They did nothing to create the relationship I have with my fans. So this is where I’m asking for your help.”
She is asking for her fans to “please let Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun know how you feel” about the situation.
She also included a plea for fans to direct their attention to unnamed artists also managed by Braun, whom fans are interpreting to mean Ariana Grande and Demi Lovato.
“Please ask them for help with this – I’m hoping that maybe they can talk some sense into the men who are exercising tyrannical control over someone who just wants to play the music she wrote,” Swift said.
