The Scooter Braun Drama: Explained

Plus, a bunch of recommendations!

Welcome to Gibson Johns’ pop culture newsletter — subscribe to get recommendations of what to watch, read and listen to in your inbox every week!

There’s been a lot of smoke over the past week or so around Scooter Braun, the famed manager of Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande who became public enemy No. 1 in the Swiftverse when he bought the record label Big Machine and, thus, the masters to Taylor’s first six albums. There’s no need to rehash that story because, honestly, if you’re reading this, I’m going to just assume you’re at least vaguely familiar with it.

Reports surfaced a week ago that Justin and Scooter haven’t spoken in months and that Justin is shopping around for new management for the first time in his career (Scooter discovered Justin on YouTube). As various sources cast doubt on that claim, it also came out that Ariana, Demi Lovato, J Balvin and Idina Menzel had all reportedly dropped him as their manager, too. Speculation started to mount: Was a big story about to come out about Scooter? What did they know that we didn’t? Some of the biggest pop stars in the world dropping their manager around the same time can’t be a coincidence, right?

The first point of clarity came in the form of a Variety article that essentially claimed that Scooter was slowly transitioning out of day-to-day management into his role as CEO at HYBE America, which owns his management company. Justin and Ariana are still under contract with SB Projects, they aren’t leaving and everyone is just trying to figure out the new structure. It honestly made sense, but maybe a little too much so. While the change in duties explanation made sense (especially as a recently divorced dad to young children who didn’t want to be at the whims of a few megastars), that still doesn’t really explain the waterfall of news. Why was Scooter, who has always deeply cared about his public image and being liked, acting unbothered and letting this seemingly normal professional change come out in such a messy way?

Matt Belloni, the journalist who first broke the Justin and Ariana news, hosted Shirley Halperin on his podcast “The Town” yesterday to discuss the whole ordeal, and it’s worth the listen. (As is the discussion on today’s episode of “Who? Weekly.”) And then he dropped his latest reporting around the matter in this Puck article (put your email in and you can read it as your one complimentary article without subscribing), which kind of confirmed what I had been thinking about it: There was more to this story and it couldn’t be tied up with such a pretty bow.

In essence, the part about Scooter stepping up to CEO and having bigger responsibilities is true, but he took on that role two years ago thinking he could do so while also still successfully fulfilling his management duties. But when you’re managing two of the world’s biggest superstars who are used to your undivided attention whenever they need it, that can only sustain itself for so long. Take this Ariana anecdote from Belloni’s article:

“Earlier this month, Ariana Grande was going through a personal crisis amid a separation from her husband and tabloid coverage of her new romantic relationship. Grande’s team wanted her longtime manager, Scooter Braun, to fly to New York from a vacation in Europe to help put out the fires. Braun, who has cultivated an A-list client roster by being the guy who can counsel his artists through scandal—despite, or possibly because of, his own outsized and often shameless public persona—declined to make the trip. That answer took at least one person on Grande’s team by surprise. “I deserve a vacation,” Braun is said to have told them.”

As for Bieber’s side, there’s this:

“Bieber wasn’t pleased with Braun’s partner Allison Kaye, who took the lead on his recent tour before it was canceled amid his health issues. Bieber and his wife, Hailey, apparently felt Kaye wasn’t above-board with them, and they blamed Braun for it. Now Bieber owes AEG nearly 100 shows, and it’s unclear when he will tour again. Earlier this year, Bieber, still just 29, sold his catalog to Hipgnosis Songs Capital for a quick $200 million.”

In their eyes, maybe they were fine being passed to Scooter’s trusted associates who they were told could handle the responsibilities, but when it became clear that wasn’t the case, why would they stick around? Billboard reports that Bieber wants out of his contract with SB Projects, which he recently re-signed for several more years (Belloni posits that this possibly points to two things: That Scooter did indeed plan on trying to keep managing Justin and that he also wanted to keep him onboard as a client to make sure his company didn’t lose valuation in its sale.).

Even more interestingly, to me, is a Page Six article that dropped last Friday, which said that it’s Hailey who has been pushing for Justin to start asking more questions of those around him and change up the team that he’s had in place for most of his career: “Hailey has taken control and is heavily involved. She’s a part of meetings and she’s talking a lot for him. She’s the voice. They’re becoming this power couple. She’s a big part of everything he’s doing.” As they start to chart the path to becoming more of a unit publicly as a “power couple,” it makes sense that they’d want teams that are either combined or at least on the same page. He also reportedly replaced his business manager, lawyer and agent.

If you’re wondering why people care so much about the management change of a few pop stars, there are a few magnifying factors at play: Scooter spent years being a rare manager who overtly strived to build up his own public profile alongside his clients’, but he did so in a way that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. (This incredible Business Insider story from two years ago does a good job at explaining how.) He wanted so badly to be seen as the “good guy” — and, to many people, he was! — when many people had had bad experiences with him, despite him being objectively good at his job of managing artists. I mean, Ariana fired and rehired him multiple times. There’s been a clear push and pull behind-the-scenes with him for years. But then came the Taylor Swift debacle, which basically permanently villainized him. Not only that, but I think it also actually scarred him so much that it curtailed any plans he had to become even more of a public-facing mogul figure — at least for now. (That, and his divorce.)

And to have all of this happening at the tail end of the summer of the Eras Tour, a moment in Taylor Swift’s career in which she has never been more popular, meaning there are even more people who are Team Taylor and view him as a villain? It was a perfect storm for this to blow up in his face. Hilariously, the Taylor’s Version re-recordings of her albums, which were a direct response to him purchasing her masters, have been a huge part of her reaching such an apex. For a man who is so lauded at building the careers of huge, complicated pop stars, it represents another surprisingly huge public blunder in the building of his own.

Read

• This profile of Andy Roddick, the last American man to win a tennis grand slam, is the best thing I read this week — I literally teared up while reading it. (Sean Manning for GQ Sports)

• It’s been 20 years since Madonna kissed Britney and Christina at the VMAs, and this new piece features a lot of fun details about the lead-up to the instantly iconic moment (J.Lo was originally supposed to do it) and what came after (Christina’s team asked them to re-edit it to make her kiss more prominent). (Matthew Jacobs for Rolling Stone)

  • Also, watch this incredible footage from their dress rehearsal. (YouTube)

• This interview with Kristen Kish is a nice preview of what we can expect from her as the new host of “Top Chef.” (Kim Severson for The New York Times)

• There’s been a lot said on how Taylor, Beyoncé and “Barbie” have saved the economy this summer, but there’s been less written about the flip side of that: Why is it so expensive to be a fan these days? I loved this Vanity Fair article about how people’s seats at shows can tell you about their finances, as well as this Refinery29 piece about the financial toll of keeping up with superfans.

• The connection between Taylor Swift and “The Summer I Turned Pretty”: Explained. (Bella Arnold for Vulture)

• It felt like almost every publication commemorated the 50th anniversary of hip-hop this month, and my favorite two that I read were this one in The Cut honoring the female trailblazers in the genre and this one from the New York Times about the future of rap being all about the ladies.

• Why are so many celebrities suddenly playing UNO? (Bethy Squires for Vulture)

Watch

“Ball People” (GQ Sports)

As a big tennis fan who is very excited for the US Open to start on Monday, I found this new short from GQ Sports about ball people at the tournament to be fascinating and fun.

RELATED: Why Novak Djokovic is the perfect champ for the age of AI (Caira Conner for Intelligencer)

Post Malone does “Tiny Desk” (NPR)

Conversely, I am not a Post Malone fan by any means, but I found his recent “Tiny Desk” concert to be a total breath of fresh. Truly, a total surprise.

Listen

“Swiftology 101” on “High Low with EmRata”

Newfound enlightened Taylor Swift fan Emily Ratajkowski welcomed to two literal Taylor Swift scholars onto her podcast this week who had some really informative insights into her career and the current mega-popularity she’s currently experiencing.

“Believe in Magic” Podcast

If you’re a fan of juicy true crime podcasts, this 7-parter is for you. It tells the story of Megan Bhari and her mother Jean who launch a charity in the UK to help ill children. When their efforts go viral and attract the attention of One Direction and other famous people, it also attracts the scrutiny of internet sleuths who don’t buy the story that they’re selling (which also includes the claim that Megan herself is terminally ill).

Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang on “Baby, This is Keke Palmer” Podcast

A hilarious conversation between three of my favorite podcast hosts.

Currently

Hoping to catch “Bottoms” in theaters and watch the new Adam Sandler movie “You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah” on Netflix at some point this weekend before I head to Provincetown on Sunday for a week!