Following last week’s news that music mogul Scooter Braun has acquired ownership of her first six albums, Taylor Swift made a feminist statement during her performance at Amazon’s Prime Day Concert on Wednesday (10 July).

While singing Shake It Off, Swift made a point of emphasising the lyrics: “Just think, while you’ve been getting down and out about the liars and dirty, dirty cheats of the world, you could have been getting down to this sick beat.”

The internet quickly reacted by concluding that the words were meant for Braun, who she previously described as being a “manipulative bully” in a statement. 

“Taylor Swift, ending the whole male species,” wrote one fan, alongside a clip of the brilliant moment.

“The liars and the dirty, dirty cheats in the world….Scooter Braun, Taylor’s talking to you,” added another. 

It’s been a great year for Taylor Swift, whose highly-anticipated new album Lover is set for release next month. The first two singles from the record – ME! and You Need To Calm Down – have already proved to be hits, with the latter being hailed for celebrating LGBTQ+ rights.

But Swift shared the news about Braun on 30 June, which made her feel “sad and grossed out”. The star wrote a Tumblr post, saying that he subjected her to “incessant, manipulative bullying”. This, she says, is her “worst case scenario”.

She explained that it was the result of signing a contract when she was just 15 years old, and being told that she’d need to “earn” the rights of her own music back. 

The post also referenced the “revenge porn” that Kanye West involved her with for one of his music videos, and called out his wife Kim Kardashian for orchestrating “an illegally recorded snippet of a phone call to be leaked”.

Here’s the statement she wrote in full:

“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. 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.

“Some fun facts about today’s news: 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.

“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) Or when his client, Kanye West, organized a revenge porn music video which strips my body naked. 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.

“This is my worst case scenario. This is what happens when you sign a deal at fifteen to someone for whom the term ‘loyalty’ is clearly just a contractual concept. And when that man says ‘Music has value’, he means its value is beholden to men who had no part in creating it.

“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.

“Thankfully, I am now signed to a label that believes I should own anything I create. Thankfully, I left my past in Scott’s hands and not my future. And hopefully, young artists or kids with musical dreams will read this and learn about how to better protect themselves in a negotiation. You deserve to own the art you make.

I will always be proud of my past work. But for a healthier option, Lover will be out August 23.

Sad and grossed out,

Taylor.”

Image: Getty