‘Please let Taylor Swift breathe’: What Scooter Braun should have said about Donald Trump’s hate tweet is nothing

If you spend any time at all online, one basic piece of advice you want to heed is to avoid getting the wrong side of the Swifties. Scooter Braun is one of the bigger names to not follow that counsel, repeatedly.

The embattled entrepreneur and record executive has managed to draw the attention of Taylor Swift’s fandom once again, albeit this time by saying something positive about her. Braun recently put up an Instagram story with the text “Shake it off Donald. Kamala 2024” as a response to Donald Trump’s “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!” social media message.

Braun’s reaction is a reference to Swift’s 2014 hit “Shake It Off” from 1989, and Swifties quickly arrived on the scene to make their presence known.

While the story was posted on Instagram, reactions to Braun’s comments started pouring on X (formerly Twitter), where the Swift stans unitedly made it clear they don’t want any of his “help.” The reactions range from outrightly rude to relatively polite, but share a common theme of rejection and dislike.

Braun and Swift’s dispute dates back to June 2019, when the latter accused him and Big Machine Records founder Scott Borchetta of bullying her over the ownership of the masters of her first six studio albums. With no solution in sight at the time, Swift re-recorded most of those albums with the suffix (Taylor’s Version) attached to them.

Things escalated when Swift was reportedly discouraged by Big Machine from performing her songs at the 2019 American Music Awards and using them in her documentary Miss Americana. To make matters worse, the label released Swift’s album Live from Clear Channel Stripped 2008 without her approval.

Braun’s role in the dispute came from his purchase of Big Machine at the time, which made him the owner of Swift and many other artists’ work. Swift at the time mentioned not being able to purchase her own work as a result of unfavorable conditions put forward by Borchetta and the label and called Braun an “incessant, manipulative bully.” Braun went on to sell the rights of the masters to Shamrock Holdings, once again getting himself into Swift and her fans’ bad books.

Since then, Braun has expressed remorse over his actions, although he has failed to garner any sympathy from the Swifties. The singer-songwriter’s releases meanwhile have been record-breaking successes, affirming her status as the most iconic musician of her era. The dispute has received widespread media attention over time, eventually culminating in a 2024 documentary titled Taylor Swift vs. Scooter Braun: Bad Blood.

Swift’s 2020 album Folklore allegedly has multiple references to her feud with Braun and Borchetta, especially the tracks “My Tears Ricochet,” “Mad Woman,” and “The Lakes.” Swift took it a step further, when she trolled Scooter Braun through a Ryan Reynolds Match ad, which featured her popular song “Love Story” and a fallen scooter near a dumpster fire.

Braun’s attempts to reconcile are clearly failing, as they probably should, considering what’s happened in the past. What’s clear is that the next few days are likely to be traumatizing for him from a social media perspective because the Swifties are particularly not kind to men who have caused Swift direct discomfort.